A Murderous Feast
by Harold Saxon
Summary: The 10th Doctor and the recently revived Master arrive in an ancient Roman town where they are invited to a dinner party where the guests tend to disappear even before the first course is served. Post EOT, COMPLETED
1. Chapter 1

**Title: A Murderous Feast**

**Spoilers**: post The End of Time, non-canon

**Part of Series:** A Murderous Feast is part of a series called A Timelord and his Madman, but can be read as a stand-alone. The series include: (1) His Silent Mind, starting from the events of the End of Time, but with an alternative twist that the 10th Doctor was not forced to regenerate. (2) Judoon Justice. The links to these stories can be found on my author's page.

**Characters:** The 10th Doctor, The Master (John Simm), Wilfred Mott.

**Synopsis: **The 10th Doctor and the recently revived Master arrived in an ancient Roman town where they are invited to a dinner party where the guests tend to disappear even before the first course is served.

**Chapter 1**

**Touchdown**

**1.**

The crow sitting in the tree behind the shrine of the Ducatus family was observing the furry creature lying at the roots. The unfortunate animal was trambled by a horse, and had deteriorated to the point of being unidentifiable as a species. Only the skull was still intact, and its beady right eye stared up at the branches. The crow jumped down, flapping its wings as it landed next to one of the first road-kill victims in history, and picked hesitantly at the carcass. It didn't fight back. Over the years, the bird had acquired a taste for soft meat, and it immediately stabbed its beak into the clouded eye till it burst and released its gooey content. Just when it was about to let it slide down into its hungry stomach, a strange sound cut through the silent valley, like a horn blazing. A blue box appeared out of thin air and crashed into the trees, scaring the crow and forcing it to abandon its easy meal. It took off into the sky, crowing angrily. The box spun like a mad Ferris wheel, bumping against tree trunks and slashing through the lower growth, till it hit the ground and slipped over the swamp-like forest floor, dragging a deep channel into the mud. It finally came to a standstill against the trunk of a large oak tree.

The door of the Tardis swung wide open and a very dazed but happy Timelord stuck his head around the corner.

"And? How did I park?" The Master stumbled outside. His bare feet sunk away in the muddy ground.

"Like a crazy maniac." The Doctor answered disapprovingly, stepping out of the Tardis on wobbly legs.

"Oh come on, I hardly scratched the paint!" The Master glanced around with an excited glint in his eyes.

"Now let's see. Where are we?" He put his hands on his sides, and stared at the sky in contemplation. "Ah! There are clouds, and I can definitely see a blue sky!"

He sucked in a deep breath and let the taste of the air roll over his tongue as if he was savouring wine. "Nitrogen and oxygen based atmosphere, with a touch of carbon dioxide and a hint of argon, if I'm not mistaken. Could be Jonas." He opted, but then he noticed the white blossom on the tree. Slowly, he turned. A green landscape of hills lay in the far distance, shrouded by a thin layer of mist that hung low over the valley.

"Or it could be Ntullaksa in the Orion galaxy with its forests of flowers." He grinned and gazed back at the Doctor. "Not quite then." He mumbled when he observed the lack of response. He looked down at his feet, and tried again. "Okay, there is mud between my toes." He pointed out, and then sniffed the air before wrinkling up his nose. "And there is a horrible putrid smell of rotten eggs." He turned back to the Doctor with ill-concealed disappointment. "Oh, it's not Clum is it? Who the hell wants to go to Clum?" He asked, irritated. "I wouldn't even want to be found dead on Clum!"

"Not a very popular destination, I give you that." The Doctor answered, rubbing the back of his neck. He wasn't quite sure how to tell the Master, but they weren't exactly on Clum. The Master might have preferred he was, once he found out on which planet that the Tardis had landed. Before the Doctor could even try to bring it to him gently, the clouds parted and revealed a single yellow disk sitting in the sky. Sunlight split through the mist and revealed a large seaside city resting between the hills. The architecture of the settlement with its red brick houses, marble public buildings, and wooden docks, looked very familiar.

Very Mediterranean.

"Oh no." The Master groaned.

"I know. I know. It's not what you want, but trust me, it's the safest place I could think of." The Doctor tried.

"We're on Earth!" The Master spat, disgusted.

"There is really nothing wrong with Earth."

"There is _everything_ wrong with this stinking, human-infested planet. How the hell did we end up here? I've set the navigator on random with a clear exclusion of this shithole of a place!"

The Doctor held up his sonicscrewdriver and gave the Master a meaningful look.

"Oh you bloody cheat." The Master narrowed his eyes. "I should have taken that from you while I still had the chance." Extremely displeased, he rushed back inside and almost knocked down poor Wilf, who was still shuffling towards the exit on shaky legs like a new born calf.

"If I had allowed you to have it your way, we would have crashed with a 99.99% chance to hit a uninhabitable planet." The Doctor sighed as he dashed after him.

The Master wasn't listening. He was far too busy fiddling with the controls, and after a few seconds behind the onboard computer, he was already able to restart the Tardis. At first, the engines awoke, producing a very promising powerful drone, but quickly it deteriorated till it made a sad little noise like a drowning kitten, before it gave up completely. Even the lights in the console room shut down.

"It's dead." The Master exclaimed, raising his hands in disbelief.

"Off course it's dead. You burnt down half of the units." Doctor said. "We can't go anywhere until the core units are repaired."

"I won't stay here for a second longer." The Master ranted, and stabbed his finger at the Doctor. "I order you to fix it and get me off this planet, right now!"

"Excuse me?" The Doctor blinked his eyes, baffled by the Master's attitude. "Maybe I didn't catch it right, but did you say _order_? What ever happened to _could you please_?"

"If you're not gonna fix it, I'm gonna fix it." The Master picked up a screwdriver and started smashing down the handle on the console with a pissed off expression on his face.

While the Doctor was busy trying to convince the Master to stop wrecking the Tardis, Wilf was standing outside, and was observing the strange landscape around him. The most remarkable landmark was the middle-sized city in the distance. The style in which the larger buildings were constructed reminded him of Italy. They had Hellenistic columns supporting huge, triangle shaped facades, with large wooden entrances and narrow rows of windows. At the same time, the smaller buildings reminded him of the Roman villas and the three storey apartments that he had seen displayed in museums in matchbox-sized reproductions. Wilf sucked in a deep breath of air as it slowly dawned on him where they exactly were. Although he knew that the Tardis could travel in both time and space, he had never dreamt that he would actually experience time-travel the way Donna had. The Tardis had brought them back to Roman times.

"Oh my God." Wilf covered his mouth with his hand. He stumbled back inside. "We did it. We really did it! We've travelled back in time!" He exclaimed.

"Master, listen to me!" The Doctor tried, ignoring Wilf's euphoria. "You're not clear in your head yet! Calm down and stop trying to do something complicated or the Tardis will end up as useless scrap in the junkyard."

"Oh would you _please_ stop telling me that there is still something wrong in my head?" The Master shouted back at the Doctor. "I'm fine. I've never been better! It's driving me nuts that you keep telling me that I'm mad."

"I didn't say that you're _mad_. You have to understand, that lethal dose of radiation that you've received kick-started your recovery, but it has also triggered some over-active neural growth. Your neurons are making new connections at a most unhealthy speed. I'm only trying to tell you to calm down or you'll burn up just like the Tardis!"

"Oh Doctor! This is absolutely wonderful!" Wilf uttered, overtaken by joy. "There is an entire ancient Roman city, just outside of the Tardis! And I thought that being up with you in space was amazing. But this…"

The Master rolled his eyes in dismay. "Great, not only are we stranded on Earth, but we're stuck in BC instead of AD. How on Gallifrey are we going to get the parts that are needed for repair!"

"I've got a few spare bolts and pieces on board, don't you worry." The Doctor quickly turned to Wilf. "I know it's amazing Wilf, but could that just wait for a sec? We're kinda in the middle of something."

"I should have known you better." The Master muttered, his voice dripping with sarcasm. "Congratulations Doctor, you've made me fall for it yet again. I was an idiot to belief that you would ever treat me like an equal. And now I find myself once again imprisoned with you as my bloody guard."

"Oh come on! That's not fair. Since when is asking someone to say please a sign of abuse? It's a bit melodramatic, even for you." The Doctor objected.

"I'm not being melodramatic." The Master sneered, getting more and more overdramatic as their quarrel continued. "Try rotting away in a rusty metal cage for the last two thousand years, then tell me that it's fine to be stuck on the same planet where they have just tried to execute you!"

"Doctor, you have to come out and take a look. I'm not sure which Roman town it is. Maybe you could tell." Wilf pressed on, blinded by excitement, he somehow managed to remain blissfully unaware of the rising tension between the two.

"Oh, wait a minute. I bet you had this all planned, didn't you?" The Master continued, his old friend paranoia kicking in. "Rescue me from the black planet and then shut the Tardis doors to keep me locked up for as long as your righteous, pompous self believes to be necessary." He contorted his face. "You're no better than those Judoon goons or those hypocrites of the Timelord high counsel. I won't let this happen. You hear me?" He shouted, and he tapped a finger on his chest. "I'm no ones prisoner, and certainly not yours!"

"Right." The Doctor huffed and held up his hands as if to say no more. He was getting tired of this conversation that only seemed be getting more ridiculous by the minute. "Stop your insane ramblings. You are splitting my head."

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to be such a bother." Wilf apologized.

"No, not you." The Doctor nodded at the Master. "Him!"

"Oh boohoo." The Master pouted, reviving a trace of Harold Saxon. "Shall I humour you and reverse back to my catatonic state to make it easier?" The Master grinned. "What now Doctor? Are you going to chain me up to the Tardis? Drug me till I pass out or turn back into that shuffling, dribbling loon? I bet you think that would be quite convenient. You're such a sick hypocritical bastard."

"Hey! You can't speak to the Doctor like that!" Wilf said, finally picking up the bad vibes. "He got you out, you ungrateful dog!"

"I have quite enough of this." The Doctor murmured. It had only been ten minutes since he started dealing with the fully conscious Master and already he felt exhausted. The recently revived Master was absolutely exhausting, like one of those small annoying dogs that keep bouncing around and yapping at their own tails. He took in a deep breath and pointed at Wilf. "Wilf, just give us a moment to sort things out, will you? I'll get you home as quickly as possible. And you." He pointed at the Master, giving him a decisive look. "Stop ranting like an idiot or I swear, I'll put you on a leash!"

A silence followed. Both men were staring at each other. The Doctor tried to appear firm and unyielding, while the Master responded with defiance and arrogance.

"I see." Muttered the Master, finally breaking the silence. He calmly turned away from the Doctor.

"Where are you going?" The Doctor asked when he saw the Master run out of the Tardis and into the Roman countryside.

"Master, come back!"

**2.**

No matter how much the Doctor would yell and plead, there was no chance that the Master was going back to the Tardis. He knew that the Doctor was right. The Tardis wouldn't fly until some major parts of the core unites were replaced, and that would take days. That is, when the idiot indeed had all the necessary pieces onboard, which he seriously doubted. From all those years he had known the Doctor, he didn't exactly strike him as the well-prepared type, which meant that they were probably stranded here for at least a week.

Plenty of time to think of a plan to get rid of the Doctor and Wilf, and get his hands on the Tardis after he had let the Doctor do the necessary repairs.

"Oh yes that's exactly what I should do." He murmured to himself, keeping his speed as he made his way through what appeared to be a march-land with scattered islands of crooked trees. Taking the Doctor along for the ride had proved to be such a mistake.

"Let's see if he still thinks this prehistoric wasteland is such a wonderful place when he's marooned here without his precious Tardis." He hissed with petty vindictiveness. As soon as he got himself more settled, he would get rid of those annoying manacles and that humiliating dog collar around his neck. He wanted to remove every last trace of what reminded him of the Judoon trials and the black tower from his existence.

The sun appeared once again from behind the clouds and bright beams of sunlight came through, warming his face. He shut his eyes, cherishing this rare moment of freedom, of movement and awareness, of just the wind brushing over his skin as he crossed the march. To be able to use his legs again, to run, to feel, and to act, made him dizzy with happiness. He had almost forgotten how it was. He had not felt this free ever since he was a child.

There was no way that he would let the Doctor treat him like his prisoner.

He never wanted to see the inside of a cage again.

The ground beneath his feet became solid, and the march made way for a stretch of grassland littered with rocks. A road slithered through the scenery. Even without looking back, he could sense that the Doctor was coming after him. The Master headed down towards the Roman road to hide in the crowd that was heading towards the unknown Roman town in the valley. As soon as he reached the proximity of the flagstone road, a scent…no not a scent, a _stench_ hit him, like an unyielding brick wall. The Master had an excellent sense of smell. Although he had been forced to spent centuries in a neglected, unwashed state, and would have reeked like a piece of French cheese that had dropped into an open sewer by the end of his 2000 year long imprisonment, a fact that the Doctor could actually concur if it was ever asked, the Master couldn't stomach this pure putrid nastiness that came wafting by on the soft spring breeze. It was one of the main reasons why he personally disliked Clum so much.

Curious and revolted at the same time, the Master searched the travelling crowd for the source. He realized that the very sight of this gathering of humans would probably make Wilf tear up with silly happiness. These were proper Romans, dressed in tunics, all shuffling over the stony road on ill-fitting sandals. He had never quite understood how a great civilization as ambitious and innovative as the Romans could fail so miserably in developing better footwear.

There were men, lean and muscular, tanned by the sun with leathery skin, pulling handcarts with fresh vegetables and fruit that grew on the fertile fields surrounding the valley. There were women in colourful robes, carrying baskets filled with exotic spices, fragrant perfumes and brightly coloured cones of incense. There were carts pulled by oxen and donkeys, loaded with sealed amphorae filled with wine and olive oil, while others were stacked high with blocks of wood for cooking and heating. The Master followed the peculiar stench to a cart pulled by a grey mule. It was stacked with big ceramic pots sealed off with wax lids.

"Excuse me, can I help you?" The Roman merchant asked, studying the strangely dressed man who was eying at his merchandise with suspicion.

Standing so close, the horrific stink made the Master's eyes tear-up as if he had just rubbed his tear-ducts with a slice of onion. He pinched his nose shut between his fingers and breathed through his mouth while he spoke.

"What's inside those pots?"

"_That_ is top quality garum in process." The merchant answered, and tapped on the large pots with a proud smile on his face. "It still needs refining, but the final product could rival that of Cartagena and Gades in the Spanish colonies."

"It smells like something horrible has died and crawled inside to rot in the hot sun." The Master muttered.

"Well if you mean with something horrible, thirty buckets filled with putrefying fish-guts, you're about right." A turnip farmer pulling a handcart with root vegetables who had overheard the conversation opted.

"Would you just stop talking down my merchandise Agricola Lunius?" The merchant snapped back at the man. "That's going to be prime quality garum. I don't see your turnips being considered an important ingredient for a gourmet meal!"

"It's rotting fish-guts, that's what it is." The other man answered.

"Oh that explains a lot." The Master murmured, still breathing through his mouth, although he feared he would have to wash his tongue afterwards to ever be able to get rid of the taste. "Tell me, what's that city you're all heading for?"

"You mean that? That's Ephesus off course." The merchant answered, pointing at the gate in the distance where the entire crowd tried to squeeze through.

"Ah, the once Roman capital of Asia Minor. That's not too bad. Considering that I could have ended up in some backwater town in Gaul." The Master muttered.

The garum merchant clearly didn't want to waste more time talking, and pulled on the reins to get his donkey pick up pace.

"Just one more question." The Master opted as he noticed that the merchant was trying to get rid of him. Actually, the feelings were quite mutual. "What year is it?"

"Have you just crawled out from beneath a rock? It's the 12th year of the reign of our good emperor Tiberius of course." The merchant answered, beginning to suspect that he's dealing with a halfwit.

"12th year of Tib- that's around 26AD." Master said after a quick calculation. He raised his eyebrows in surprise. "Well well well, I stand corrected, it's not BC after all. Still, not exactly space-age."

"Where are you from?" The garum merchant asked, narrowing his eyes as he glared at him.

"Why do you care?"

"Really shitty attitude you've got. I've answered all of your questions."

"That will teach you not to be too friendly to strangers." The Master grinned. He saw the Doctor's head sticking above the crowd and he immediately ducked down behind the garum cart to hide.

The merchant had enough of this insolent stranger. He stuck two fingers in his mouth and whistled hard to attract the attention of a man riding on horseback.

"Hey! Hey! Stop that you idiot!" The Master hissed. "I order you to stop!'

The merchant gave him a look of incredulity and continued to beckon the man, who came over, just before the Doctor spotted the Master.

The man on the horse turned out to be a hardy looking Roman soldier complete with ornate moulded breastplate and crested helmet shining in the sun. "What's going on?" He enquired without so much as a smile.

"Officer, it's this man over here. I think he's a runaway. I spoke to him and he doesn't seem to be from around this area. Me, being a good Roman citizen and all, thought I should warn someone from the authorities. You don't want the likes of him wandering in our great city and messing up the streets."

The soldier gave the filthy creature that the merchant had pointed out a long hard look. "Who is your master?" He finally asked, figuring by the sight of him that the young man was probably a slave.

"What are you babbling about? I have no master. I'm the Master." The Master replied, insulted by the man's insolence.

Both the merchant and the soldier burst out laughing. "Yeah, right, and I'm a bloody Vestal Virgin!" The merchant ridiculed.

"You don't look like a master to me." The smile faded and the joy drained out of the Roman soldier's voice just as sudden as it came. With one fluid movement that could only be gained with years of practice in bloody battle, he took his javelin and stuck the point through one of the links of the chains that were still dangling from the Master's wrists.

"You look more like a runaway slave." He hissed, and whirled the javelin around, spinning the chains around the wooden pole, and drawing the Master in like a flapping fish on the hook.

"You cannot do this!" The Master protested. Pure dread rose from the pit of his stomach when he saw the Doctor approaching, followed by Wilf. Of all people.

"I'm not a slave, you stupid human. I am really called the Master."

"Oh look. He's also an entertainer." The soldier snorted. "Let's see if you're still making those silly jokes when your master fails to collect you and we throw you out in the arena to feed the lions."

The Master dug his heels between the flagstones and yanked on the chains, only to find that his struggles secured the tangle of knots tighter around the pole. The soldier reached over and slapped him hard.

"Hey stop that!" The Doctor shouted over the heads of the small crowd that had gathered around the scene.

"Is he always like this?" Wilf asked, amazed by the absurd speed and ease with which the Master could stir up trouble.

"You mean is he always this quick in making himself a nuisance?" The Doctor said, glancing back at Wilf as he elbowed through the masses to get to the front. "Yep, as soon as he sets foot on a place, that's pretty much how he is. I really do have my work cut out for me for the next hundred years."

The soldier raised his hand and was about to strike the Master again, and the Doctor being the Doctor, was about to do something about it, when a large black horse carrying a figure with a sweeping red robe galloped down the road.

"Make way! Make way! Quickly! Make way for my master!' The young man shouted, as he drove the horse through the crowd. Women screamed in panic. The sea of people split in two, fleeing to the opposite sides of the road. The horseback soldier remained where he was, unyielding like a good Roman officer, and looking mightily pissed that yet another clown had showed up to complicate his shift. He pulled hard on his horse's reins to keep him from rearing up.

"Get out of the way!" The servant on the horseback shouted at the garum merchant who was pulling and pushing, trying everything to get his mule to pull the cart to the side.

"Can't." He huffed. "Stupid beast won't budge an inch!"

The Doctor assessed the situation with a growing sense of alarm when out of nowhere, a large burning wheel came rolling down at an incredible speed and smashed into the side of the garum cart where it exploded like Chinese firework in the sky. The mule, spooked by the fiery display, kicked his hind legs against the cart, and the whole freight of carefully stacked pots toppled down in a massive landslide over the Roman soldier, burying both him and his horse under a mount of pots. The Master, who found cover under a nearby abandoned vegetable cart, crawled out from his hiding place and starting pulling on the chains. It was of no use. The javelin was lodged beneath the soldier's unconscious body, stuck underneath the heavy pile.

Much to the Master's dismay, the Doctor rushed over to his aid.

"No, don't need your help. I'm just doing fine." The Master murmured, trying to salvage of what remained of his dignity before the Doctor came over to stamp on it. Breaking to a sweat, he kept tugging, pulling on the chains with his whole body weight, and could almost see one end of the javelin appear from underneath the heavy bastard's arm, when his effort brought down another load of pots.

A black chariot rushed down the hill. It's three remaining wheels wobbled unsteadily over the flagstones as if they were about to fall off. Just like the first wheel, all three of them appeared to be burning and gave the chariot the appearance as being driven on golden disks. The chariot had no driver, and no horses. The reddened face of a middle-aged man appeared from behind the closed curtains from the cabin, his eyes wide with fear as he waved his large arm in panic to get the people off the road. "Get out of the way! I can't stop! I can't stop!"

_Of course you cannot. _The Master thought in the split second that he could indulge himself into sarcasm. By the way things were turning out for him lately, this was only to be expected.

"Master! Watch out!" The Doctor yelled and pulling one of his compassionate but hardly helpful faces as he dashed forward in what appeared to be an attempt to throw himself in front of the carriage. It wasn't that the Master didn't appreciate the Doctor's dedication, but he had a better idea. He reached for the soldier's helmet, the slack in the chains just allowed him to grab hold of it, and aimed for the remaining front wheel. With his hearts beating wildly in his chest, for he was mediocre at ballgames at the best of times, he flung the soldier's helmet at the chariot that came charging down at him.

To the Master's own amazement, it actually hit the right wheel in the spokes and knocked it right off from the axle. The whole front of the carriage dropped down on the flagstones with a loud bang, splitting the wood and digging its nose into the ground. It slowed down considerably but was still moving at a speed that was more acceptable for the 21st century than the first century AD. The Master stared at the incoming projectile and made his calculations. 300 km per hour, 150 km per hour, 80 km per hour, 30…20…10…

The chariot stopped right in front of his nose, less than one third of a meter away.

The Master let out a deep breath of air, and slumped back against a pile of turnips that had fallen off the cart.

"Oh merciful Gods!" A large man stepped out the now defunct chariot. Dressed like a Roman noble, his face was pleasant and round, with a large, bulbous nose. He spoke with his hands raised up at the sky. "Oh wonderful Diana, fierce Apollo and gracious Athena! Thank you! Thank you for saving the life of senator Magnus Pompous!" He dropped on his knees and kissed the flagstones.

"Excuse me, but that wasn't exactly the Gods."

Magnus Pompous rose back up and turned to observe the grimy slave sitting on the ground, still locked in chains.

"I was the one who saved you." The Master said, looking up at the Roman with a disdainful look in his eyes. "I knocked off the wheel from your out of control vehicle and stopped it. Since you're a senator, you might as well show me some gratitude and get me out of these." He gave the chains an angry pull to illustrate his frustration. Better to be set free by this superstitious Roman than to allow the Doctor to beg for his release.

"Well, have I ever." Senator Pompous muttered, bothered by the slave's boldness. Luckily for the Master, Magnus Pompous was a righteous man, and he did realize that this young man had saved his and his daughter's life. He also knew how much Dea disliked to see him mistreat the slaves. He glanced back at the chariot and saw her pale, heart-shaped face shine through the silk curtains. Her blue eyes were watching him expectantly.

"Well then." The senator said. "Tell me, what is your name? And what is your supposed crime?"

"My name is the Master, and I've certainly not committed any crimes." He noticed the frown on the Doctor's face. "At least not in the short time that I've been here." He muttered inaudibly under his breath.

"You're a master?" Senator Pompous's face morphed from condescending to amused. "I'm sorry but I find that very hard to believe." The Master frowned when he saw how the senator giggled at the preposterous idea. "Now tell me, truthfully, who is your master? Perhaps I could convince him to be lenient with you."

"I am!" The Doctor stuck up his hand and ran forward. The Master groaned as if he had been punched in the stomach. "I'm his master!" The Doctor ignored the vicious look that the Master was giving him.

"You're the rightful owner?" Pompous asked.

"Oh yes! Bought him for an apple and an egg at the bazaar in Alexandria. I've all the official documents, right here." He waved the slightly psychic paper in the senator's face for a very brief moment before putting it away. The senator observed the Doctor from head to toes and found him nearly as odd looking as the slave sitting at his feet. He narrowed his eyes. "And you are?"

"I'm the Doctor. Just the Doctor. I'm a traveler." The Doctor nodded at Wilf who appeared by his side. "And this is my great great-uncle Wilf. Wilf Mott-tus." He added, wincing.

"Did the fountain of inspiration dry up on you, Doctor?" The Master scorned. "Wilf Mottus? I'm practically feeling sorry for your dad."

"Ah, a travelling physician, how novel." The senator mused. "Salve Doctor. I'm senator Magnus Pompous. What's your slave's name by the way?"

"Mas-Marcellus." The Doctor muttered. Not bad actually, he thought. "His name is Marcellus."

"Marcellus?" The Master spat, pulling a face.

"He's quite loud, this one. And very disrespectful." The senator commented.

"Oh yes he is. I do apologize for his behaviour. He can't help it. Most of what he says doesn't make any sense. His previous owner used to hit him on the head with a mallet whenever he got rude. And that's quite a lot of times, no surprise there. Still. Poor sod. He is little off if you get what I mean." The Doctor accentuated his words by twirling his finger near his temple.

"I see." The Senator replied, raising his eyebrows a little. "Still, I'm very grateful that you saved my life and that of my beloved daughter Dea." He gestured at the girl who was still sitting behind the closed curtains in the carriage. "I want to show you my gratitude. Let me return your runaway to you." He snapped his fingers at his servant who immediately took out his sword and cut through the Master's chains with one well-aimed slash.

The senator waited with his hands on his back. Surely Marcellus would now express his gratitude for his release, but the Master didn't say a word. He calmly rose to his feet, and took his time to brush off the dirt from his clothes as if he was wearing an expensive suit rather than a grimy prison outfit.

"Uhm, like I said, he's not entirely right in the head." The Doctor apologized for his friend.

"Right." The senator huffed, hardly concealing his indignation. Luckily the senator's servant showed up. He had just bought a fine looking horse from the merchants on the road and was saddling it up for his master.

"Ah, fresh horses, good work Gaius." The senator stepped on the servant's back as if he was a footstool and climbed on top of his newly purchased horse. A large man balancing unsteadily on the saddle like a graceless bag of potatoes, he was in stark contrast with his daughter who finally appeared out of the carriage. A thin, rose-cheeked beauty with blue, haunting eyes, she climbed on the servant's horse without aid.

"Can we go now father? We're running late." She asked him in slightly demanding voice.

"Yes, almost my little cherub." The senator beckoned the Doctor to come closer. "Doctor, I would like to invite you and your great-uncle Wilf to a dinner party tonight."

"Oh I love dinner-parties." The Doctor answered, hopping on the balls of his feet. "That's very kind of you senator."

"Come to my villa after sunset. It's the largest house on top of the Artemis hill on the west side facing the sea. If you don't know the way, ask someone in town for directions. Tell them that you're looking for the house of Magnus Pompous. Everybody in Ephesus knows who I am and where I live."

"Yes, and there are probably not a lot of houses in Ephesus with wide enough doors to fit through the honourable senator's extra-ordinary bloated head." The Master murmured quietly, inaudible for all but the Doctor to hear.

"I'm sure we'll manage to find it." The Doctor grinned awkwardly.

"Oh, and maybe I could offer you some well-meant advice." The senator continued, lowering his voice, unaware that the Master still could hear every word of their conversation. "I know that being a physician requires a certain… extent of compassion, but take it from me Doctor. Like a good father, a good dominus should dispatch discipline from time to time, or the slaves in your household would just run wild." He nodded his head at the Master. "You might not want to spare the rod on this one. Trust me. I've been in the slave business for twenty odd years, and I recognize that look. He's like a wild horse who still needs breaking before he's good enough for pulling the carts."

"I'll keep that in mind. Thank you." Doctor continued to grin politely, but his smile was starting to become rather forced.

"Send someone to pick up the chariot, Gaius." Pompous ordered, talking sternly to the slave to show his new acquaintance the right example. "I want it brought back to the workshop. Especially the wheels!" He greeted the Doctor and Wilf, before he dug the spurs deep in the horse's side.

"Master?" The Doctor stretched out his hand after the senator and his daughter had left. It was a sign of reconciliation, but the Master brushed it aside. He turned around and headed into the direction of the crowd without so much as acknowledging the Doctor's presence.

"Master where you going?"

"Away." He murmured to no-one in particular. "Far, far away."

The Doctor stuck his hands inside his pockets. "Mind if Wilf and I tag along?" He asked with a hopeful smile.

A miserable groan came from the Master. He clenched and unclenched his hands, and slowly he turned. "Doctor, does your cruelty to me truly know no bounds?" He asked.

"What do you mean? I'm hardly ever cruel. Certainly not to you." The Doctor answered with sincere puzzlement.

"You had your fun." He sighed. "Now let me go. If you're really that pathetically lonely and in need of a companion, go ask your dad over there to give you a hug. I'm not going back to the Tardis with you."

"You're leaving?" The Doctor said, baffled. "But you can't just leave."

"Watch." The Master whirled around and without looking back he raised his hand up and waved. "This is me, saying tah!"

"Master! Master!"

He ignored the Doctor, shut out his voice all together. He didn't notice the sudden change in the Doctor's pleads, going from concerned to alarmed as he came near the pile of broken pots underneath which the Roman soldier and his horse were still buried. Just when the Master wondered how long it would take for an army as efficient as the Romans to come down here to clean up the mess, the horse of the soldier woke up. Flaring his nostrils, the steed quickly decided that he disliked garum almost as much as the Master did. The animal flung to his side and rose in a tumble of swaying legs and a clatter of pottery breaking over the flagstones.

The Master had sustained many injuries over the years. Some of them were lethal, most of them weren't. He had never been kicked in the head by a horse before, and he would certainly recommend it to the worst of his enemies, because it was absolutely, bloody painful. There was a sickening crack of the skull, followed by a splitting headache before the entire world turned black.

**3.**

His head felt heavy, not because it still hurt but rather because of the ridiculous amount of bandages that were wrapped around his skull. He looked like an Indian fakir. If he would lower his chin too much his head would drop and he wouldn't be able to lift it up again.

The Doctor came in, balancing a tray with two steaming mugs. He had a blush on his cheeks and was smiling from ear to ear. The Master, propped up in the Doctor's bed, silently wondered if he really needed to resolve to murder to get rid of him.

"How are you feeling?" The Doctor asked. Placing the tray on the side-table, he handed him a mug of tea. The fruity scent that rose up from the warm liquid was familiar and very comforting.

"Like I've been kicked in the head by a horse." The Master deadpanned, and shrugged at the foolishness of the question while he slowly took a sip.

"This tastes like robinberries." He murmured, lifting his eyebrows in pleasant surprise.

"I added a good teaspoon of robinberry jam. There is more in the small pot over there on the tray if you want."

"Where did you get this?" The Master asked. There was only one planet where the robinberry bush was found, but that planet, of course, no longer existed.

"Secret stash." The Doctor answered, noticing the glint of nostalgia in the Master's eyes. "I still have a couple of pots in the larder. This stuff keeps forever. At least I had it for over what? 60 years, now." He dipped his finger in the pot and licked the sweet jam from his fingertip. "What do you think?"

The Master took a spoonful into his mouth. "It's not as good as my grandmother's." He pondered, smacking his lips.

"You can't compare it with that. Countess Oakdown had her own secret recipe, and I'm sure that there was more in it than only robinberries and sugar. Still, it's the closest thing I could get my hands on. A taste of home." The Doctor glanced back at him expectantly.

"Why are you doing this?" The Master asked, after a short silence.

"What do you mean?"

"You're not going to get anything out of this. You're not going to gain anything by being kind to me."

"Oh I don't know…You'll never find out if you don't try. The drums are gone now, aren't they?"

The Master rolled his eyes and stared down into his mug just to avoid that hopeful gaze in the Doctor's eyes. Noticing something odd, he raised his hands, and saw that the manacles were missing. He checked for the collar around his neck. It was also gone.

"I got them off while you were still unconscious. The collar with the tracking device in particular needed to be removed. You don't want the Judoons to find out that you're still alive." The Doctor said. "There are no more chains to bind you. You're free."

"You mean I can just leave?" The Master snorted.

"Actually, yes, as soon as you are feeling better, you can." The Doctor answered, before continuing in a more gentle voice. "Master, you don't have to fight me. There is no need for it. Not anymore. So of course you can leave. If you want to."

The Master swallowed. The sweet taste of the robinberry jam still clung to his throat. "I wouldn't know where to go." The Master said quietly, and regretted to have said it as soon as he had finished the sentence.

"Then…stay." The Doctor replied. There was that flicker of hope again. "I don't know if you can still remember this, but you were actually the first person who I've ever asked to come travel with me. I couldn't persuade you then, but maybe, now that everything has changed.…" The Doctor's voice trailed off. It pained him to think of how things could have turned out differently, if he could have just convinced the Master to leave Gallifrey with him, so many years ago.

"Yet another cohort for the well-travelled Doctor." The Master crossed his arms over his chest. If he had noticed something of the Doctor's regret, he did not want to act on it. "To be wined and dined and entertained, is that what you want me to be?" He laughed.

"Oh no." The Doctor shook his head, remaining serious. "You'll be my Timelord companion. My friend and equal. Nothing less. It would be my honour." The Doctor said with such a deep-felt sincerity that it finally breached through the master's resolve.

"I could." The Master murmured after a moment of contemplation. He couldn't help but to feel genuinely touched. However brilliant, stubborn and proud, even he wasn't immune to the Doctor's kindness. "At least until the Tardis is repaired to get us out of Ephesus." He added quickly.

A radiant smile appeared on the Doctor's face. The Master had no idea how happy he had made him with this decision. "Oh that reminds me." The Doctor said. "We're invited for dinner at the senator Pompous's house tonight." The smile changed into a wide, enthusiastic grin. "We could all go together!"

It was amazing how quickly a situation with the Doctor could turn out in such a way that the Master was made to regret his own words in a matter of seconds. Shutting his eyes in silent suffering, the Master banged his head on the sideboard and slowly counted back from four.

**_TBC_**

_Next chapter will be posted on Saturday the 24th of April. (Yes I know, it is postponed, I'm sorry for this, but the next chapter still needs some serious work before it can be posted, please be patient). As always, please review and comment if the story pleases you. It motivates me to continue._


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2**

**1.**

The streets of Ephesus were still oven-hot from the late afternoon heat, and were basking in the dusty orange glow of the setting sun. Wilf, the Doctor, and the Master were on their way to the senator's house. Dressed in the colourful Roman tunics that the Tardis wardrobe had produced, they shuffled unsteadily on thin leather sandals over the marble slates of the main-street that led from the harbours to the hills. It was flanked on both sides by flats from which the ground level apartments were rented out to noisy merchants, who despite of the slumbering heat, were still trying to sell pots, clothes, food and whatnots to the general public before the day was over.

"This better be good." The Master muttered. He had removed the bandages from his head, much to the Doctor's dismay. Although the scars were still visible underneath his shortly cropped hair, the Master didn't exactly understand what the Doctor was fussing about. Thanks to his accelerated healing capacity, he had quickly recovered from the worst of his head-injury.

"How can it not be good?" The Doctor asked, a little amazed. He was wearing his sonic screwdriver under his belt, and looked like a complete dork as far as the Master was concerned. "We're in Ephesus! The shining city of the east where the roads are paved with marble! People here became stupendously rich by trading with the cities at the eastern Roman borders. They imported Egyptian papyrus, exotic fruits from Syria, and fierce beasts from the dark African continent for the imperial games in Rome. Whatever you may ask, they can supply it. Even queen Cleopatra and Marc Antony frequently visit this place."

"Really?" Wilf asked excitedly.

"Oh yes." The Doctor nodded. "To do shopping mostly. Everybody knows that Cleopatra was a notorious shopaholic. She used to spend fortunes on luxury goods. When she was done in the summer of 32BC, there was allegedly not a single bottle of rosewater left in the entire town."

"You know, if we really were sight-seeing you'll make a very disappointing guide." The Master commented, grinning like a man with toothache as he half-listened to the Doctor's prattle about the history of the place. "Unless the tourists were all from some immensely insipid place, like let's say Luxemburg in the 1990s. In that case you would be considered mediocre at best." The fake grin disappeared from his face. "Why did you go in on that exasperating senator's invitation?" He asked accusingly. "And don't tell me it was because you thought it would be a barrel of laughs. I don't share your peculiar type of humour."

"You're not holding a grudge, are you?" The Doctor asked, arching a brow.

"Oh why would I? I just happened to have saved the man's life. Instead of showing me a little gratitude, he decided to thank you, of all people, and wanted to cart me off as a slave. _No of course not. Don't be ridiculous._ " The master answered in an icy, sarcastic tune.

"It's just how society works in this these early days of civilization." The Doctor explained, trying to persuade him to be more reasonable with the senator. "A master is fully responsible for the actions of his slave. If you had committed a crime he would have held me similarly accountable. Anyway, didn't you notice that there was something odd with the wheels of his chariot?"

"There were tiny rockets secured on the spokes." The Master muttered, rolling his eyes. What did the Doctor thought he was? One of his simple-minded human companions who needed to be coaxed and guided every minute that he was by his side? "They were running on combustion engines if I am not mistaken. The type with enough power to sent that wooden carriage to the moon and back. Which makes strapping them to the wheels of your chariot in the hope to go a bit faster a real moronic idea, even for an inbred Roman snob like him. The longer I think about it, the more I am convinced that this human should be removed by natural selection to prevent further deterioration of the species."

"That was advanced alien technology." The Doctor responded, raising his brows and staring at the Master in the hope that he would take an interest.

"It's Naskular technology. 53rd century, give or take." The Master replied with much apathy.

"If it's alien, what is it doing here in ancient Rome?" Wilf asked.

"Good question." The Doctor nodded, a bit too enthusiastic. "You see?" He pointed out. "That's why I need my time-travelling companions. I need input, people who dare to ask the right questions."

"Oh shut up." The Master muttered, rubbing his temples, for he felt a mild headache coming up. Maybe he did still suffer from concussion. "You only drag a human along because you just love to hear the sound of your own voice explaining the obvious to the stupid."

"Oh my God." Wilf suddenly halted in front of a large public building that was adorned by a stone façade that depicted the scene of Odysseus blinding the Cyclops Polyphemus. "Is this a Roman bathhouse?" Wilf exclaimed. "I've always wanted to see how one looks like inside. I only saw the one in Bath. But this….this is the real thing, isn't it? This is wonderful!"

"Looks like granddad has acquired a taste for the antiquities. Maybe you should put _him_ on a leash." The Master remarked with a smirk.

The Doctor returned a stern look to the Master.

"Oh this is so exciting!" Wilf muttered, he crossed the street and headed for the entrance of the bathhouse.

"Wilf! Eh, maybe you shouldn't be wandering off on your own?" The Doctor tried.

"Oh this primitive footwear is killing me." The Master complained, ignoring the Doctor's concern for his human companion. He readjusted the sandal straps while balancing on one foot. "I know we are supposed to be blending in with the locals and all, but can't we at least wear proper shoes? I can feel every wobble in the road and there's all kind of flora stuck between my toes." The Master spotted a shoe-shop in the corner of the street.

"Maybe they can offer me some assistance." He muttered, and also headed off.

"Master? Wilf?" Suddenly, the Doctor found himself left standing by his own in the middle of the road.

"Fancy to buy a new pair of comfortable steppers sir?" The shoe-salesman asked. The Master, content that at last, one of these humans were finally starting to address him properly, well at least he called him sir, swept a fleeting glance over the merchandise. There were sandals, sandals, and more sandals, enough to shoe the entire population of Asia Minor, but not a single pair of them could remotely please the demanding Timelord.

"Don't you have anything of better design?" The Master asked, picking one up by the straps, and holding it like he would a dead fish.

"What do you mean sir?"

"I mean something not crafted entirely out of a flimsy piece of chewed-out leather." He dropped it back on the pile. "A proper pair of shoes, not just a sorry excuse for."

The merchant looked puzzled and scratched the back of his head. "They're all like this. How should a shoe otherwise look like?"

The Master cocked his head to one side. "I have a couple of suggestions. It's slippery out there. A marble sidewalk in a town surrounded by muddy marchlands is more pleasing for the eye than it is common sense. The least you can do is to get a bit of profile under these." He pulled a nail out of a wooden beam that was supposedly keeping the display table from falling apart and pushed it through the leather sole with his thumb.

"Hey, you just made a hole in it! That's gonna leak."

"As if my feet would ever stay dry wearing one of these things. It's for grip." The Master smashed the sandal on the table, burying the sharp end of the nail into the wooden surface. "See, it can't slip now." He demonstrated it to the merchant by pulling on the sole that was now stuck to the table.

"It can't move either. Looks pretty useless to me." The salesman shrugged.

The Master groaned. Yet another reason to despise this place. Half of the earth's population had the brain capacity of a sodden fruitfly. "That man wouldn't know how to make money even when it's thrown into his face." The Master complained while being coaxed away from the store by the Doctor.

They found Wilf halfway up the steps of the bathhouse complex.

"Doctor, oh there you are. Can we visit one of these Roman baths before we go?" Wilf managed to ask, before he too was dragged away by the Timelord.

"Later!" The Doctor snapped, towing his two companions behind him as he went up the road in hasty steps.

They walked up hill for a while till they reaching the end of the main-street where the road split into two. One way led to the forum, while the second one headed further uphill towards a neighbourhood of expensive-looking terrace houses. The biggest one on the left had a marble portal, and was flanked by two massive Egyptian sphinxes. The most remarkable ornament was situated right in front of the Roman villa. It was a huge fountain, adorned with the more muscular and slimmed down figure of Magnus Pompous, spewing water from his pouted lips.

"Let me guess, it's the one on the left." The Master deadpanned.

"Nice house." The Doctor remarked.

"Absolutely vile taste." The Master scoffed.

They were welcomed and escorted by the senator's diligent servants through the entrance into the huge atrium. Once they were inside, Wilf became lost for words. He gazed at the walls where a dedicated artist had translated the scenery of the seven hills of Rome with painstaking precision into paint and mortar. Scenes of the senators in the forum, the games in the amphitheatre and every day life was vibrantly shown on the terracotta red coloured walls. A beautiful mosaic covered the entire floor. It depicted the Mediterranean Sea, complete with its most important harbours. A large golden and a smaller silver disk, representing the sun and the moon, glittered over the blue waves. In the centre of the atrium was the impluvium, a shallow pool that collected the water from the open roof. In the middle stood a gilded statue of the God Apollo, reaching out for the mosaic ships heading for the harbour of Ephesus. Wilf took it all in with dumbstruck awe, and even the Doctor was impressed. The Master however, kept his calm and looked with indifference at all this splendour and exuberant exploits of wealth as if he was taking a look in auntie Gertrude's junk-shed. Everything in this house was designed to show off and strike admiration for the owner. Since he severely disliked the senator, he was not going to give him the satisfaction.

Senator Pompous approached them, dressed in an expensive silk robe that was dyed in a striking blue colour, and with the rims of his sleeves finished with golden threads, he looked like he had cost a small fortune. "Welcome Doctor!" Their host exclaimed, holding out his arms to receive his guests. "And welcome to your great-uncle Wilf Mottus. Come in further. The triclinium is just behind the garden. You have just arrived in time, my friends. We were about to start with dinner."

They followed Magnus Pompous to the back of the villa. On their way, they passed by an arcade of columns. It was flanked by a row of carved Roman heads, representing Pompous's own family, with a rather flattering statue of himself, his late wife, and his daughter Dea, all painted brightly in vivid colours with the black paint glinting in their eyes, making them all look strangely alive.

They entered the triclunium that overlooked a lush garden where two other guests were already present. They were reclining lazily on the red velvet couches. The Doctor settled down next to them and assumed their position as if he was invited to a Roman banquet every day. Wilf, uncertain about how accurte his knowledge was of Roman table manners, copied the Doctor's pose and also propped himself up on one side, resting on one elbow.

"What are you doing?" Pompous asked. He was appalled when he saw that the Master was about to do the same. "Slaves are not allowed to eat with their masters!"

"Really." The Master replied, blinking his eyes and faking puzzlement. "I didn't know. If anything I blame the Doctor, he runs a rather lenient household."

"I've never heard such insolence!" The senator fumed.

"Eh, Marcellus, maybe you should stand at the back." The Doctor said, nodding at the group of slaves waiting silently at the back of the room to attend their masters. Meanwhile, he was begging him through their psychic link to humour the senator.

"My sincere apologies." The Master said with an icy smile, not even trying to seem sincere. He turned to join the other slaves and even bowed his head and folded his hands in front of him like the others to appear obedient. The Doctor sucked in a deep breath and scratched the back of his neck. He was sure that he wasn't going to hear the end of it once this social gathering was over. At this pace, he feared he would be rapidly running out of robinberry jam to keep the Master appeased.

The food arrived and the dinner-party finally took off. The Doctor, who hadn't had a hot meal ever since he went out to look for the Master, could for the time being enjoy the exotic taste of Roman cuisine in relative peace after he finally managed to shut out the Master, who kept hurling insults and sarcastic remarks at him via their telepathic connection.

Before the Doctor could ask the senator about the chariot accident to find out more about the rockets, one of the dinner-guests, a haughty young man who looked rich and bored and apparently owned an entire fleet of grain-ships, started a conversation with Pompous in which he complained about how the harbour was slowly clogging up, and needed to be dug out every month to keep it open for the larger ships to reach the docks.

"I know what you would like to say to me, Magnus. Of course it's our own fault. Everybody knows that the Goddess Diana became angry with us after we cut down the trees in her sacred hunting ground up in the hills. But the good people of Ephesus have also tried to appease her by building the great Artemis temple in her honour. She has no reason to keep obstructing the bay." He stated, popping an oily mushroom into his mouth. The morsel was drenched in pungent garum. The Master gagged and turned to the garden for much needed fresh air, but the horrible smell seemed to be wafting all over the place.

"It must have something to do with that metal star that fell from the sky." The second guest remarked, he was as large and round as a barrel, and his many chins quivered when he spoke. "Ever since the priests brought it to the temple and offered it to the Goddess, it had brought nothing but bad luck to the city."

"Oh don't be so distrustful Decimus Horatius." Senator Pompous replied as he bit into a roasted goose leg. "Remember, they are paid to act in the city's interests. If the star was some sort of ill omen, you think that they would try to get rid of it instead of keeping it inside the temple."

The Master eyed hungrily how the fat juices of the meat dripped down the senator's chin. _I have just about heard enough if this._ The Master thought. Let the Doctor keep the company of these goons and listen to their boring gossip. He was famished, his stomach was rumbling from all that food that he could smell and see but wasn't allowed to taste or eat. In a quiet moment, he sneaked out of the triclinium, and made his way against the steady stream of slaves that continued to bring in the dishes. Hungrily, he followed the line back into the kitchen.

**2.**

It was only after the fourth course, when the guests of Magnus Pompous finally stopped stuffing themselves and the slaves were sent out to fetch the buckets and the ostrich feathers to relief their bloated stomachs, that the Doctor became aware of the remarkable quiet in the back of his mind. He turned and noticed that the Master was no longer in the room. Alarmed, he excused himself, and went looking for the other Timelord, leaving poor Wilf to savour the roasted flamingo in sweet and sour sauce, and enjoy the delights of goose egg terrine with pig-trotters pate.

Following the Master's scent, the Doctor quickly found him in the kitchen. He was sitting at the table, casually chatting away to the slave girls who were busy preparing the meals. Had the Doctor felt bad for letting the Master go hungry in the triclinium, the sight of him surrounded by the giggling kitchenmaids severely lowered his level of empathy for his fellow Timelord.

"What's this?" The Master asked, glaring at the young blushing maid who had just put a plate of cooked apples in front of his nose.

"Have a taste." She answered with a pouty smile.

He dipped his fingers in the sticky red sauce and put it in his mouth. "Not bad. There is honey, vinegar and pepper." He licked his fingers clean and kept his eyes on the girl. "Sweet and red. Like your lips."

The girl leaned closer to him, her bosom falling and rising quickly, the reflection from the kitchen-fire shimmered over her oily, olive coloured skin.

"My lips aren't that sweet." She breathed.

"Allow me another taste." The Master purred, and brushed over her hot cheeks with the back of his hand, guiding her mouth closer to his.

"Ah there you are." The Doctor spoke, a tad too loud. "I've been looking for you all over the place."

Embarrassed, the girl dashed away and headed back to attend the roasting meat above the fire. The Master smacked his lips and turned to the Doctor.

"How's life at the higher end of society?" He inquired innocently, beaming a smile at him.

"Boring and predictable, compared to what's going on in here, apparently." The Doctor shot an accusing glance at the Master, and sat down at the other side of the table. He took in the dishes spread out in front of him.

"Dormouse skewers, elephant trunk stew, roasted parrot wings…they're feeding you better than they are feeding their own master." He said, somewhat astounded.

"Oh these kind and lovely ladies make absolutely wonderful hosts." The Master smirked, putting his hands behind his head as he winked at the dark-skinned girl.

"You didn't hypnotise them, did you?" The Doctor asked sternly.

"No of course not." The Master replied. "Don't be ridiculous!"

"Because if you did, but you tell me you didn't, and I have to find out later…"

"I've asked them, politely." The Master sighed. "Might have even said _could I please_ at a certain point. If I had stayed in the triclinium waiting for you to throw me some scraps I would have been fighting the dogs for the bones under the table by now."

"I was going to bring you food." The Doctor protested and produced some leftovers wrapped in a greasy linen bag that he handed over to the Master.

"Ah." The Master dangled it between two fingers. The sight of it alone was spoiling his appetite. "No need for that anymore. But please, by all means, try a dormouse. I told them to hold back on the garum. It's actually quite edible now."

The Doctor picked up a skewer and studied the grilled rodent with curiosity. "Guess what I've just found out from senator's Pompous's company?" He muttered. Checking the teeth in the mummified snout.

"Just spit it out." The Master replied, stripping the tender meat from the wooden skewer with his teeth. "Just don't expect me to be impressed."

"An object fell out of the sky." The Doctor began, putting the rodent kebab back on the plate, and leaning closer to the Master. "About three months ago. A farmer found it in the fields, in the middle of a large impact-crater. Allegedly, it was a metal star. The high priests brought it to the temple of Artermis where it was offered to the Goddess. Since then, all kinds of weird stuff started to happen in Ephesus. The birth of a two-headed calf, hail and snow in the middle of summer, even the obstruction of the city's vital harbour. They blamed it all on the fallen star."

"A clogged up bay after the soil is flushed down the hills after deforestation." The Master snorted. "That's really strange, I give you that."

"I know, I know, there's a lot of the usual superstitious nonsense colouring that story, but somehow, all this is also connected to the senator. The rockets on the wheels on his chariot, he told me that he had salvaged the technology from the same field where the farmer found the metal star."

"Sorry. Not impressed." The Master answered, sticking a knife in the cooked apples and taking a bite.

"Of course not." The Doctor sighed, slumping back in his chair. He was really trying his best to help, but the Master wasn't exactly cooperating, as usual. There must be something else he could do with his life now that the drums were gone, something that had a purpose and that would catch his interest, and that didn't involve half of the planet's population being enslaved or getting murdered.

"You wanne know what I found out?" The Master asked rather unexpectedly, lifting an eyebrow.

The Doctor glared back at him and furrowed his brows. "What did you find out?"

"Garum."

"What about it?"

"The senator is making his own." The Master licked the sweet sticky taste from his lips. "There are huge pots buried outside in the backyard. That's where this stench comes from. The girls told me."

"It's not something uncommon. That stuff is like ketchup for them, they splash it on everything. These people can't help it that you happen to dislike it so much."

"It smells different." The Master wrinkled up his nose. "It's nothing like that stuff that that merchant was bringing into town."

"Maybe it's a different recipe." The Doctor sighed. He really didn't understand where all of a sudden, this strange obsession with the popular Roman condiment came from. "Look, does it even matter?"

The Master shrugged and stuck his knife in the stew to fish out a lumpy piece of meat. The Doctor felt his stomach turn. Trunks were not the most appetizing part of the anatomy of any animal, even if they were cooked so tender that the meat was falling apart from the skin. The Master didn't seem to share the Doctor's aversions for this particular cut, and bit off a large chunk, chewing on it in contemplation.

"Did you taste the soup?" He asked. He didn't look at the Doctor, but kept staring at the large bubbling cauldron that dangled above the open fire at the far end of the kitchen. A memory stirred in the Master's mind, a vision that surfaced from underneath the veils of forgetfulness, but remained hazy at best. Something about three women, standing around a large cauldron and stirring in a thick brew. He blinked his eyes, and the memory vaporized into thin air, leaving his mind blank again.

"No. I don't think it was brought in yet." The Doctor answered, unaware that the Master having a strange flashback. He just thought he looked so puzzled because he was trying to figure out if he was going to like or dislike the Roman elephant trunk dish. "Why? What's wrong with the soup?"

"Have a taste." The Master murmured, and pushed a bowl in front of the Doctor's nose.

The Doctor looked at the Master for a moment, and stirred in the thick brown liquid with a wooden spoon. Strips of pink meat swirled up from the bottom.

"Oh come on. I'm not going to poison you." The Master grinned. "Do show a little trust in your new companion, Doctor."

Warily, the Doctor brought the spoon to his lips and took a tiny sip.

"It's actually very nice." He said, smacking his lips in surprise. "Salty, and flavoursome, with a touch of sweetness that's kinda hard to place. What's in it?"

"Pork belly." The Master answered. "At least, that's what the cooks are telling me." He watched with a certain degree of interest how the Doctor spooned up the entire bowl.

"Is that what you found out in here, a recipe for a really good pork-meat soup?" The Doctor teased.

The Master shrugged. "I thought it tasted a little familiar, but maybe I was wrong. Would you like another serving?" He asked, remarkably polite, after noticing that the Doctor had emptied the bowl till the last drop. He turned and gestured at the girl who had just flirted with him. She returned a smile that was all honey and sweetness and brought another bowl to the table.

"What are you doing Appia?" A woman shrieked, appearing into the kitchen carrying two empty buckets. Tall and thin as a stick, she acted and spoke as if she was in charge of the place. "You know you're not allowed to give away food without the master's permission!"

"I'm sorry." The girl hastily moved away from the table and almost dropped the bowl in fright.

"I'll inform our master. He will have you flogged for this!" The woman shouted, her voice as piercing and harsh as that of a 17th century French fishwife.

"No! No! Miss Bubulca. It won't happen again, I swear." The girl pleaded.

"Hey, stop scaring her like that!" The Doctor said. "She was just being kind."

"And who are you?" Bubulca asked, sticking her pointy nose in the air as she studied the Doctor.

"We? We're invited guests of senator Pompous." The Doctor answered. "She wasn't giving away food. We were supposed to be fed by your master. She did nothing wrong that would justify a flogging."

"Really?" Bubulca snorted. "And what are you two doing in my kitchen then?"

"We lost our way trying to find the lavatory." The Doctor opted.

"We came here to complain about the poor quality of the food." The Master answered at the same time.

"Ah, which one is it?" Bubulca replied, narrowing her eyes.

"Both." The Doctor replied quickly, wincing.

"Right." The older woman said, putting her hands on her side. Surely she didn't trust these two oddballs for one bit. "Could you two gents please return to the banquet then?" She requested with a tone in her voice that border-lined mockery. "A greasy kitchen is not a suitable place for our master's most honourable guests. We'll all get intro trouble when he finds out."

"Oh if that's the case, we will head back at once." The Doctor replied, grabbing the Master by the elbow and dragging him out into the corridor. "We certainly don't want kind, lovely Appia to get into trouble, now do we?"

"Jealous, are you?" The Master replied, with the beginning of a small grin.

"Don't be stupid." The Doctor muttered, clenching his teeth, he kept walking till they were both out of the kitchen.

They didn't notice her, but someone was watching them leave from behind the purple curtains draped in front of the columns in the hallway. When they were gone, she lowered her cap, revealing a cascade of dark chestnut hair and a white, heart-shaped face. Dea calmly stepped into the kitchen and gave a slight nod to acknowledge the kitchen slaves who anxiously greeted their young mistress.

"What did they want?" She asked in a low, urgent voice as she went over to Balcuba.

"How should I know?" Balcuba snapped, showing remarkably little respect to her mistress. "They just came wondering in while I was feeding the others. It's not my fault. You were supposed to keep an eye on that fat git's houseguests while I'm busy."

"I'm not allowed to eat with the men at formal dinners. I must have told you that a hundred times by now. You would think it would finally stick." Dea snapped back.

"Stupid backward race with all those silly little rules." Balcuba scorned.

"The man who's called Marcellus, he was the one who stopped Magnus's chariot. He knows something. I saw him glaring at the engines strapped to the wheels. It's like he understands what they are." Dea said, worriedly.

"He was talking to that Appia girl when I came in." Balcuba replied.

Dea shot a fleeting glance over her shoulder at the slave girl, who was still tending the fires and turning the roast.

"Maybe I should have a word with her." Dea muttered, giving Balcuba a look.

A knowing grin appeared on Bulcuba's face. Her hand glided over the chopping boards and selected from the sharp blades a long butcher knife. The handle was made of bone. She handed it over to Dea.

"Maybe that's not such a bad thing. The soup is getting awfully thin. We're running low on meat." Balcuba noted with broad smile, showing her graveyard rows of teeth.

Dea's lips pulled into a brief grin as she hid the knife in the folds of her robe. She strolled over to Appia and told her that she wanted to have a word with her. Then she ordered the slave girl to follow her to the larder where the butchered animals were hung and salted. Bulcuba watched how the skinny slave girl went into the small dark chamber at the back, her eyes frightened and her frame trembling, like a lamb brought in for slaughter. When the door closed behind Appia, Bulcuba smiled, and waited, running her thumb over the cutting edge of a knife till it left a sharp crimson line over the blade.

**3.**

When the evening ended and the guests were gathering outside of Magnus Pompous magnificent villa, the senator went over to the Doctor and spoke to him in private. The Master noticed how the human kept turning to his daughter Dea, who had appeared at the porch with a long blue robe wrapped around her shoulders. The Master could sense that she was staring at him, but when he turned around to look, she immediate looked away.

"What did old walrus face want?" The Master asked in a casual tune when the three of them were heading back to the Tardis. It was a wonderful evening. The moon was shining brightly in the cloudless sky while a warm wind brought the smell of the sea into the streets. Not a bad night to take a leisurely stroll in an ancient Roman city, even if you happen to be in the company of someone who used to be your mortal enemy.

"The senator asked if I could take a look at his daughter Dea. He is worried about her health. Apparently, she doesn't eat much, and gets thinner by the day."

"She's one of those anorexic types?" The Master said. "That's very modern. How is that your problem?"

"Doctor, as in physician, as in general healthcare practitioner." The Doctor noted.

"Thank Gallifrey you didn't call yourself the Sewage Cleaner or Horse Manure Shoveller then." The Master laughed.

"You know, I don't think that last one is even a proper occupation." The Doctor replied, passing by two men who were doing just that to keep the streets from turning into a slip and slide made of horse poo.

"Are you going to help her, Doctor?" Wilf asked.

"I see what I can do. I can't imagine that there's anything serious though. It's probably just worms. People get worms all the time back in 26 AD. However, there's another thing I would like to investigate the first thing in the morning."

The Master rolled his eyes. "Please tell me that you're not referring to that metal star mystery you're trying to solve."

"Oh come on! It's kept inside the temple of Artemis. One of the seven wonders of the ancient world! I've already seen all the others." The Doctor counted them on his fingers. "The Colossus of Rhodos, The firehouse of Alexandria, the hanging gardens of Babylon. Let me tell you, that one was absolutely breathtaking! I would certainly recommend it to anyone! And let's see, the mausoleum, the statue of Zeus, and the pyramid of Giza, twice. Once in 2000 BC and once in 2000 AD. So the temple is the last one on my list. Since we're in Ephesus, we might as well go and have a look at it. Who knows when we'll end up here again." The Doctor argued with an enigmatic grin spread across lips.

"No." The Master said sternly. "Spare me all of that first century tourist guide's talk. Let's just keep your mind focussed on fixing the Tardis shall we?"

"Oh the Tardis can repair itself." The Doctor said, waving away the Master's concerns. "I've set it on self-healing. All she needs is a bit of rest. We could go out while she's recalibrating her navigation system. Get a bit of sunshine on your face. It would do you good."

"The temple of Artemis. That's sounds exciting." Wilf muttered, starry eyed.

The Doctor smiled happily. "What do you say? In for a bit of sight-seeing?"

"Do I have a choice?" The Master blurted.

**4.**

It appeared that the Doctor wasn't the only one who came up with the luminous idea to visit the temple of Artemis. They found out the very next morning, that the entire town was swamped by what the Doctor called pilgrims and what the Master referred to as bloody tourists, and they were all heading down hill, towards the lowlands where the magnificent temple stood.

"This is not too bad." The Doctor said as they pushed their way through the masses. "Considering this is a public holiday. Of course, with 156 public Roman holidays each year, the chance to pick out a more quiet day to come visit the temple is really only a little more than 1 in 2. Rather silly to have so many holidays, don't you think? You would expect that the Romans would never get any work done. But then again, most of the people you see working in ancient Roman times are slaves -"

Only Wilf was still trying to follow the Doctor's chaotic thoughts, the Master had already stopped listening to him the moment the Doctor had drawn his breath to form the first sentence. There were more interesting things to be learned from this place, just by careful observation. For example, the road ahead to the temple was littered with tiny stalls, selling all kinds of strange nick-knacks. The Master browsed through the merchandise, sniffing a weird looking fruit with black spikes, and picking up a fuzzy ball with what appeared to be a large blue eye painted on it.

"You want to buy that sir?" The seller asked eagerly.

"Actually I don't even know what it is." The Master murmured.

"Why, that's the eye of Medusa. It wards off evil and keeps the bad things at bay."

"Aha, a talisman of some sort, a local folklore oddity, how charming." He mused. "Although…I must say it doesn't look much like an eye to me."

"It's made of a dried bull's ball sir. Cut from a virulent bull in the prime of his life by Vestal Maidens." The merchant explained with much misplaced pride.

"Ah." The Master dropped the talisman back in the seller's hands and wiped his hand fervently over the fabric of his tunic.

"You don't want to buy it? It's awfully good for treating a cold."

"Undoubtedly it is." The Master murmured, and glanced over at the Doctor, who was chatting enthusiastically with another seller. He was getting an idea.

"I'm sorry but I'm but a humble slave and don't have a single Sestertius in my possession. My master, however," He paused and tilted the seller's head towards the other Timelord to help him focus his limited attention. "Is wealthy enough to buy up your entire store. As it happens, I also know he is in dire need of some protection spells."

"Are you sure?" The seller asked eagerly.

"Take a look at him." The Master pointed at the Doctor who was just grabbing the small purse with Roman coins from his belt to pay for a suspiciously mouldy looking sausage from another stallholder. "I'm afraid that he is a man of a too kind and trusting nature, who gets easily taken advantage of."

"He does look quite gullible." The seller muttered, eyes glinting, and rubbing his hands avariciously. "Eh I mean...it looks like your master could use a good charm to ward off trouble."

"That's right." The Master grinned and slapped the man's cheeks with both his hands. "You've got the idea." When he stepped away from the stand, the seller was already taking whatever he could carry from his stall and charged at the Doctor with a vigour that was unknown even to the most persuasive merchants of the Artemis temple. He put two fingers in his mouth and whistled, catching the attention of the other stallholders who immediately followed his example.

"Oh ello!" The Doctor said, smiling kindly at the short man who came running at him holding up a bunch of what looked like blue and white orbs in his hands. "Always nice to meet the locals." He gazed at the others who also came rushing at him carrying hands-full of merchandise. "I must say you're all extraordinary friendly here in Ephesus." The Doctor muttered.

"Are you coming along grandpa?" The Master asked. He pulled Wilf away from a stall selling brightly coloured glass vials.

"Isn't the Doctor coming?" Wilf turned around to find him, but the Doctor seemed to be lost in the crowd.

"Oh he's occupied." The Master grinned. "He seems very popular with the plebs."

As they ascended the many stairs that led up to the platform, Wilf, as with many things he encountered in this ancient city, was struck with awe with the very size of the temple. The roof was supported by rows of marble columns that rose up 20 meters into the sky, and in the middle was the central cella, the house of the Goddess that was shaped like huge marble box. Wilf followed the Master as he entered. Inside, stood a 15 meters tall statue of the Goddess Artemis, cast entirely from bronze and covered with gold leaves. Her watchful eyes were two black onyx stones set against white marble.

"She doesn't really look like the Artemis I know from the books." Wilf commented, cocking his head to one side. "Wasn't she also called Diana, the goddess of the hunt and wild nature? I though she was supposed to look like an Amazon, you know, someone who could hold a bow and shoot a deer. This one looks more…"

"Anatomically enticing?" The Master opted.

"I was going to say maternal." Wilf flushed. "At least, if those are what I think they are."

"The woman wears a bodice made out of a hundred breasts. If that's what you mean."

"Um, yes. I suppose it's a sign of fertility, right?"

"How should I know?" The Master shrugged. "Honestly, I'm not the tiniest bit interested in the history of your stunted little species. You have to ask the Doctor for the more amusing details."

"Can I help you good pilgrims?" A priestess appeared from behind the grand statue, holding a burning oil-lamp in her hand. "Do you seek a way to worship the Goddess?"

"As a matter of fact we do." The Master answered, slipping into the roll of someone in charge with the easy of fitting an old shoe. "My great uncle and I came all the way from Britannia to show or our dedication to her."

"Devoted pilgrims from Britannia!" She said, smiling from ear to ear. "How wonderful! Perhaps you would consider making a small donation?"

"Better still, we would even contemplate to make a most generous donation to the temple, if you would be so kind to show us the sacred star." The Master replied, knowing how the game was played. It didn't matter how far back in time you went, you could always rely on that most enduring, and to the Master, most useful of human traits, human greed. Besides, this place had "tourist trap" written all over it. He would have actually felt offended if she wasn't susceptible to bribe.

"If it's sacred relics you're interested in, you might want to see the arrow of Lycia instead." She answered. "It was shot from the golden bow of the Goddess herself."

The Master shook his head.

"Or perhaps I could interest you to take a glimpse at the gilded string of Apollo's lyre?" She tried.

"No thank you, but we really only came here for the star. The one made of metal that fell from the sky?"

The friendliness on the priestess's face disappeared. "Actually, how generous is that donation we are talking about?" She finally asked.

"Let's just say that you can be assured that the depth of our dedication to the Goddess will be reflected in the amount of coins we are willing to spend for the exchange of a fleeting glance at her most sacred object." The Master said, flashing his most perfect greasy politician smile at her.

For a moment, it seemed that priestess was hesitating, but there was something in the Master's voice that made his arguments seem very convincing and persuasive that made her change her mind. She beckoned the two to follow her further into the sanctum.

They were led to the feet of the statue of the Goddess. The priestess knelt down in front, and lifted a loose marble slate from the floor. A wooden box was kept in the tiny secret space. She lifted it out, opened the lid, and showed its content to both the Master and Wilf.

Inside the wooden box was a cigar-shaped metal pod with a number of small marbles the size of peas. The Master counted sixteen in total. Fifteen of them showed tiny cracks that ran all the way around without splitting them. One was still whole. The Master carefully picked it up from the box, and let it roll over the palm of his hand. For such a small object, it was remarkably heavy.

He held it against the light of the oillamp. Beneath the almost transparent pearly shine, he could see something stirring inside. Something in there was alive, and was waiting impatiently to hatch and crawl out into this world.

"I'm sorry. I don't-." The priestess shook her head and blinked her eyes as if she was trying to wake up. Her eyes went wide when she saw the Master holding one of the temple's most sacred relics. "What are you doing? You're not supposed to touch that! Put it back immediately!" She demanded.

For once in his life, the Master actually did as he was told.

"I don't know what came over me." The priestess muttered, fearing that she had lost her mind. "That's the most important relic that we have. I wasn't supposed to show it to anyone." She closed the lid and put the box back inside the hiding place before covering it up with the marble slate. Then she turned and stared angrily at the Master. "You talked me into this. I don't know how you did this…but you did." She composed herself. "I'm still expecting a donation to the temple." She said sternly.

"Ah." The Master said, cocking an eyebrow. "Wilf, you don't happen to carry a bag of Roman coins with you?" He whispered.

"Is this how it works then? You only remember my name when you need to borrow money?" Wilf answered.

"A simple no would be suffice." The Master replied dryly.

A man ran up the platform, his face red and in complete panic, wearing what looked like wreaths of bulbous blue eyes around his neck. His tunic was tattered and torn, and his hair peeked in all the possible directions that were imaginable.

The Master crossed his arms and smirked, shaking his head as he observed the Doctor. "I knew it! You just couldn't say no."

The Doctor sighed and kissed the marble floor. "Finally! Sacred ground." He huffed, trying to catch his breath. "They're not allowed to follow me in here."

"How much money do you have left?" The Master asked him, without so much as a bit of pity.

The Doctor stared back at him with an incredulous expression on his face. "They have just made me put a second mortgage on the Tardis to buy me one of these." He showed him the garland made of ornamental dried bull's testicles in his hand. "I didn't even know that I already had a mortgage. I'm probably paying this junk off till far into the next century, how much do you think I've left?" The Doctor rambled.

The Master sighed and stuck his hand in the leather bag that the Doctor carried on his belt. There were no more coins left, but he fishing out the slightly psychic paper instead and showed it to the priestess.

"We're not paying you." The Master simple stated. "We're actually from the department of religious affairs and were conduction an inspection of all the temples dedicated to the Goddess Artemis in this area."

"That's quick. You made that all up on the spot?" Wilf whispered.

"By Artemis! Inspectors." The priestess clutched her robe. "I'm sorry sir. I had no idea. We are badly prepared for your visit. I hope this does not reflex on your report on us to Rome…"

The Doctor grabbed the psychic paper out of the Master's hand. "The report will be fine. Nothing to worry about." He tapped with his knuckles on the columns and nodded approvingly. "Nope, no marble-rot in the columns." He slapped his hand flat on the marble. "As far as I can see, everything is in mint condition."

"In fact, we're so impressed that we're swiftly moving on to the next temple." The Master added.

"We are?" The Doctor turned and saw the Master nodding at him fervently. "Yes, of course we are! We're leaving. _Not _through the front gates!" The Doctor yelled, pointing Wilf and the Master into the other direction. "We're going through the back! I don't want to spend another fortune on souvenirs of dubious quality." He muttered as he headed after them.

"Will you be back for another visit?" The priestess inquired. "I could summon the sisterhood to perform a ritual for you."

"You know what, that sounds really interesting." The Doctor answered, walking backwards as he addressed her. "Keep that thought and I let you know when we decide to do a second round. Maybe we'll come short on details!"

_**TBC**_

_As always, please review.__ It keeps me motivated to write._


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3**

**1.**

It wasn't such a bad thing that the Doctor had promised senator Pompous to visit again in the early afternoon. Although it was only late April, outside, it was at least a whopping 30 degrees in the shade and the pavement was cracking. Dogs lay panting in the shaded porches much like their human masters, while the rest of the streets were deserted. Even in the mainstreets of Ephesus, business had ground to a hold in the mad midday sun, and would only proceed again after the worst of the scorching was over.

Arriving at the villa, the Doctor and his companions were once again received by Pompous's servants and were brought to a room at the far back, a large aula where the senator would normally entertain his guests. They found Pompous sitting with his daughter, calmly overlooking the garden while a black slave waved a big fan made of white ostrich feathers over their heads.

"My dear Doctor. Wilf. Come on in, and sit down." He waved at another slave who brought two cups of grape juice to the guests. "You've met my daughter Dea?"

"Oh yes." The Doctor said enthusiastically. "I've never introduced myself properly though. Hello I'm the Doctor."

"I'm Wilf…um Mottus." Wilf said, and old-fashioned as he was, he took the girl's hand and kissed it.

"Oh Wilf. You cheeky old goat." The Master muttered with an amused grin, loud enough for Wilf to hear. "I didn't know you still have a taste for fresh young leaves."

Leaving Wilf slightly embarrassed, the Master joined the house slaves at the back of the room. It was far too hot to stir up trouble as far as he was concerned. He could always annoy the senator another time.

"I was just telling Dea that you're a travelling physician from Britannia." Pompous informed.

"So you're the doctor who's going to examine me?" Dea asked, gazing up from her needlework.

"Um yes." The Doctor replied. He caught a bit of a hostile tone in her voice. "Your father told me that you were losing weight."

"I'm not ill." She said, fixing her cold blue eyes firmly on him. "I don't need a doctor."

"Oh don't be like that, my child. You know that I'm worried about you." Pompous said, patting on her shoulders. He turned to the Doctor. "She's not herself lately."

"Oh no-one wants to be ill, it's quite understandable. All that blood-letting and cutting and probing with scalpels and spatulas would scare any sane person healthy again, just thinking about. Still." The held out his hand and gave her a boyish grin. "Better safe than sorry."

Dea glanced at her father who nodded encouragingly. She sighed, and let the Doctor take her hand and feel her pulse.

To be honest, the Doctor hadn't been practicing medicine for a quite a while now. Last time he tried to cure anyone, he was travelling with Martha and his patient had been a half-man, half-pig like creature created by the Daleks. He had no trouble to diagnose him correctly. A typical case of third-rate genetic blending that resulted in the almost fatal weakening of the heart muscles. However, this time around it proved to be far more difficult. Holding her delicate wrist and judging by her protruding cheekbones, the Roman girl was obviously on the skinny side of the scale, and closely tipping on being malnourished, but the most irritating thing was that the Doctor could not find a clue of what had caused her condition. When the Doctor felt her stomach and lower abdomen, he could not detect any lumps that pointed to parasites or bowel diseases. She wasn't feverish and her pulse was normal. Except for her being very thin, she was actually in relatively good health.

_Told you. She is this millennium's first fashion victim. _The Master murmured in the back of the Doctor's mind._ Ever considered that her problems could be a bit more psychological in nature?_

"Found anything Doctor?" Pompous inquired.

The Doctor scratched the back of his head. He feared that the Master was perhaps right. "Um. Could I have a word with you in private?"

"Of course." Pompous's face showed great concern as he guided the Doctor out of the room and into the garden.

"It's not serious, is it?" The senator asked.

"Oh no, your daughter is in good health for the time being. In fact, I can't really find anything wrong with her that explains her condition."

"But there has to be something wrong with her. In the last two months she must have lost one third of her weight. And then these strange, sudden changes in her personality. My daughter was never quite a little chatterbox Doctor, but she hardly speaks a word to me anymore, and if she does, she acts very hostile, as if she's constantly with angry with me for no good reason." His poised manner faltered for a moment. "Oh merciful Diana." He muttered, fixing his eyes on the sky. "I've already lost her beloved mother three years before to an affliction of the lungs. I don't want to lose her too. Please Doctor, there has to be an explanation!"

"Well, it might not be an affliction of the corporal kind." The Doctor muttered.

"I'm sorry Doctor, you were saying?"

The Doctor shook his head, whatever he thought about the senator's daughter's mental health, he shouldn't inform Pompous before he was absolutely sure.

"Senator, would you mind if I take a blood sample from Dea to rule out any disease of the blood?"

Of course Pompous gave his permission. He would do anything to cure his daughter, and moments later the Doctor collected a tiny drop of blood into a glass phial from a needle prick on the top of the girl's finger.

"Bona Dea." The Doctor smiled, slipping the phial in his pouch. "This should be enough to give us a clue."

"I'm glad that I could of service." Dea said in an icy voice. "Next time you need me to bleed for you again, just ask my father for permission."

"Thank you Doctor." Pompous said, sighing apolitically for his daughter's behaviour. "Come let me take you and your uncle to see the rest of the house. I remember from last night's dinner that you told me that you were particularly interested in seeing the work that's done in my workshop. Let me be a good host to you and show you around."

The Doctor and Wilf followed the senator to the corridor.

_You two head along with Pompous senior._ The Master murmured into the Doctor head. _I'll try to have a chat with the lovely young lady._

The Doctor glanced over his shoulder as he left the room, giving the Master a look of warning.

"I promise I won't hypnotise her." The Master sighed.

"Are you speaking to me?" Dea asked, she had turned in her chair and was gazing up at the slave. Except for the black slave, they were alone. The Master grinned at her.

"Something about hypnotisation." Dea continued. "Can you really do that?"

"I must say that's a keen sense of hearing." The Master replied, and to the amazement of the black slave and the Roman girl, he hopped over the back of the couch and settled down next to her.

"What are you doing?" Dea uttered, her eyes wide in shock. "My father would have you flogged for this!"

"My oh my, with that amount of flogging allegedly handed out in this household, it's a miracle that anything gets done around here." His grin widened, and he draped himself over the couch like a lazy cat with his head resting on his hands. "I myself wouldn't be able to get out of bed at all, certainly not when there are also leather cuffs and playful maidens around."

"You're sick." Dea whispered, but she didn't walk away or made any attempt to warn her father. In fact, for the first time since these strangers had come into her home, a faint smile played at the corners of her lips.

"And you are ill." He tapped his finger on his forehead. "In here."

"Is that what your master thinks. That man who calls himself the Doctor?" Dea replied in an amused voice.

"He's idiot sometimes. If I didn't give him a clue he would still be groping you trying to find out if you had worms or an exotic form of stomach tumour."

"That's no way to speak of your master." Dea smiled and stared at him. "What kind of slave are you?"

The Master glared at her. "Yesterday, when we were outside the villa before we left, you stood next to that ugly looking woman from the kitchen and told her that your father was a fat, thick-headed dimwit who should stop inviting people in for dinner. Now, call me old-fashioned, but that's no way to speak of your own father either." He grinned, observing not without amusement how the girl's mouth dropped open. "Now tell me, what kind of daughter are you?"

"H-how?" Dea breathed.

"You're not the only one with a keen sense of hearing." The Master shrugged, and winked at her. "Not happy with dear papa, are we? Why? What has he done that upsets you so much?"

"And you expect me to pour my heart out to a slave, just like that?"

The Master spread out his hands. "Didn't you hear the Doctor? I'm supposedly not entirely right in my head. As far as the others are concerned, I'm as mad as you are." He chuckled.

She fell silent for a moment. Surely she didn't have to oblige, but she was curious about this insolent slave and the strange Doctor. Perhaps, if she gave him a little information, she would gain something useful in return.

"My father's too worried about me. He treats me like a fragile bird ever since my mother died. And like a precious bird, he has me locked up in this gilded cage. I'm not even allowed to go out in the streets without a chaperon." She sighed. "I suppose my harsh words are just a reflection of how frustrated I feel of not being able to get out of the house."

"And you just what? Stopped eating to punish him for doing this to you? Is that the reason why you're starving yourself?"

Dea fluttered her eyelids, and showed him her most innocent face.

"I'm sorry, but that doesn't sound convincing at all." The Master snorted.

Irritated, Dea fixed her dark blue eyes on him. "And who are you? I mean really. Don't tell that you're a slave. I've never met a slave who acts so carelessly." Although she kept her poise, her voice carried a hint of fear, which the Master found absolutely delicious.

"The Doctor and you, you are not from around here, are you?"

He leaned in on her. "I can't tell you." I whispered in her face. "Since you keep feeding me nonsense, it would be a bad bargain for me to tell you the truth." She tensed when the Master reached out and brushed a lock of hair back to reveal a silver earring dangling from her ear.

"I'm not lying." She tried.

"Of course you're not." He muttered, studying her earring. It was a flat silver disc with a spiral pattern radiating from a white pearl in the centre. It was difficult to see, but the pearl's shiny surface was covered in a web of tiny cracks.

"If you're not answering my questions I will tell my father to arrest you and the others." She threatened.

"Really?" The Master scoffed. "On what ground?"

"On grounds of insolence!" Pompous roared, taking the Master by such surprise that he actually fell off the bloody couch when he jumped up. "What are you doing with my daughter!" He yelled as he strode angrily towards the Master and for a moment, it looked as if the senator was going to slap him. He stabbed a trembling finger at him instead. "Arrest him!" The senator ordered, and immediately, his more bulky servants came forward and grabbed the Master, pulling him up from the floor.

"What's going on in here?" The Doctor just returned to the room with Wilf when he saw Pompous's men dragged the Master away.

"Oh, no. This must be a misunderstanding. A big, big misunderstanding!" The Doctor said.

"He was sitting with my daughter!" Pompous raged, so angry that he was coming short on words. "How…how dare he! I will have him castrated before I sent him down into the mines! I'll let him be ripped apart by hungry beasts in the arena!"

"Oh let's not rush into hasty conclusion, shall we? You can only kill a man once, and blimey, will your face be red when you find out later that you've got it wrong. I'm sure Marcellus did not lay a finger on lady Dea. Right? Marcellus!"

_Please, please, please, tell me you didn't._ The Doctor begged.

"Well, I must admit…" The Master mused, making the Doctor wince.

"I wouldn't trust a word coming from that filthy little creep." Pompous said firmly.

"Would you trust me then, father?" Dea spoke, fixing all eyes on her.

"Yes." Pompous answered, taken aback. "But of course, my dear."

"I asked Marcellus to sit with me and tell me about the Doctor's travels. Since you told me that he's a travelling physician and he surely knows so much, I thought that the Doctor's llife would be an amazing adventure." She gazed at the Master. "He has done nothing to offend me. You should release him, father."

Pompous gazed at his daughter for a moment, his anger still boiling inside his guts. He finally turned, and waved at his servants to let go of the Master.

The Doctor wisely decided that they shouldn't be hanging around too long and risk the senator to change his mind.

"That was rather fun." The Master commented when they left Pompous's residence in a hurry a few moments later. "You're right Doctor, we should get out more often. Go get involved with the petty little lives of these humans. It certainly makes travelling with you less dull."

"You think so?" The Doctor replied in a stern voice. "You've almost got yourself killed. Again."

"Wasn't going to happen." The Master laughed. "Not with you around as my guardian angel. Besides, I was supposedly immortal, remember?" He took in a deep breath of air and rolled his head over his shoulder, extracting a most satisfying crack. "Really, I haven't felt so invigorated since I came back to my full senses."

"Tss, needs to get himself in mortal danger to feel a bit alive. How typical." The Doctor replied. "What are you, addicted to misery? Does your life only lighten up when you feel the adrenaline of jeopardy rush through your veins?"

"I'll go pet a puppy and stick my nose in the flowers and try to be lyrically happy about that, shall I?" The Master replied dryly.

"Did you at least find out anything?" The Doctor asked, irritated by how blasé the Master reacted.

"More than I expected actually." The Master grinned.

**2.**

They were back in the Tardis by nightfall. The Doctor was in the tiny but cosy kitchen, trying to fix dinner for the three of them. He wanted something simple that didn't involved butchering an entire zoo of exotic animals. He only had one Roman meal in this place, and that was enough to last him for the next decade. Wilf was sitting at the table with his head resting on his hands, while the Master rocked lazily on the hind legs of his chair.

"So Pompous has a workshop filled with alien technology." The Master mused, leaning so far back that the Doctor half-expected that he was going to crack his skull again sooner or later. "The man is quite a collector then."

"He salvaged most of it from the same field where the star was found." The Doctor answered. He was trying to scrape the pitiful remains of what was once a fried egg from the pan. "You should have seen the place. He had all sorts of interesting things, a broken milometer, pieces of a blackhole converter, even a large part of the defunct engine. They all seem to belong to that 53rd century Naskular spaceship."

"And he lets his workmen play with that space junk in the hope they would turn it into something useful?"

"As far as the senator is concerned, the pieces of strange metal he collected came from the machines of the Gods, which makes them highly priced artefacts. If he can make them work, it's even better."

He slid a blacked morsel down on Wilf's plate with a content smile.

"Here you go, two fried eggs on the order."

"Um, thanks." Wilf muttered.

"What? He thinks those bits came off Apollo's golden chariot?" The Master scoffed.

"A bit like that. Yeah. In the senator's mind, Zeus's thunderbolts do come with a long range target scope." The Doctor flipped the pan, and the second serving of eggs dropped like a brink on the Master's plate.

The Master wrinkled up his nose. "I believe I've asked for sunny-side up, not scorched to a cinder."

"Eat up." The Doctor sighed, and sat down with a plate in front of him. "Blimey, all the effort I've put in to have a nice meal together, and what do I get?"

"Sorry Doctor. I'm not that hungry." Wilf said, and shoved his portion aside.

"I'm pretty sure that we will get bowel cancer if we try to consume this." The Master murmured, eying down on whatever was on his plate with suspicion.

"Fine, you don't know what you're missing." The Doctor said with slight irritation. He was chewing on the crispy blackened bits and tried very hard to swallow the morsel. After a short while, he gave up. "No, nope, wait. You're not missing out on anything. This is really nasty, even for my cooking standards." He spat it out again, rubbing his tongue over his sleeves to get rid of the horrible taste. "Right." He grinned, ready for a second course. "Pizza anyone?"

"Since I do not wish to expose myself again to your amazing cooking skills, and by the sight of it, I am speaking for granddad here as well, can we just go to a tavern?" The Master asked with mild amusement.

Of course the Doctor wouldn't give up that easily. While he waited for the pizza that he had popped into the oven to be ready, he questioned the Master about what he and Wilf found out in the Artemis temple. Wilf did most of the talking while the Master kept silent, rocking back and forth in his chair, looking not the least interested. He did show a bit of a panic though when the Doctor fished out the pizza out of the oven, and offered him a large slice.

"It's an art, isn't it? Cooking." The Master lifted the black, dry triangle from his plate and buried it unceremoniously in the bin. "You're obviously not an artist."

"It's not that bad. Scrape off the burnt bits." Wilf tried.

"There won't be anything left." The Master scoffed.

"If you're not eating, that's the last pizza we had in the freezer. Maybe I should ask Pompous again to invite us for dinner." The Doctor remarked.

"Oh no you don't." The Master replied, dryly.

Wilf looked at the Doctor. "Just to clear things up. The senator's daughter's strange illness, that has nothing to do with that spaceship and those relics in the temple. Those two things, they're not connected, am I right?" Wilf said. He had also given up on the pizza. Even the Doctor wouldn't be able to bring it back to life now.

"Funny you should mention it. I don't really recognize those small pea-sized eggs you were talking about." The Doctor mused, hopping on the table and swinging his legs over the side. "Naskuls are humanoids, they pretty much look like you and me, only with tentacles instead of arms and legs and mandibles instead of a nose. They get their offspring by cellular division. I mean, they literally split into two and walk off as two whole individuals, only then half in size. I've never heard that they could hatch out of eggs." The Doctor turned to the Master. "What do you reckon? You saw them too. What do you think they were?"

The Master put his hands up in the air and pulled a _how the heck should I know_ face. "I've never seen those things before." He lied.

Later that night, the Doctor found Wilf sitting outside on a large boulder, staring up at the dark sky. The lights in the houses and the harbour of Ephesus shimmered in the distance. He sat down next to him.

"It looks like a fairytale town. It really does." Wilf muttered, still struck by the strange beauty of this place. He pointed up at the sky. "Even the stars are different. I've never seen some of them before."

"The solar system makes its turn around the centre of the Milkyway." The Doctor explained. "Our direct neighbouring stars move along with us, and keep their position in the sky. Others shift in and out of view as time moves on. It's like every generation on Earth can take a peek out of a window and see the intergalactic view change as we travel among the stars."

The Doctor wrapped his arms around his knees and gazed up at the twinkling lights. The air was clear and a cool breeze brushed over his face, cooling the sweat on his skin. He took in a deep breath. The scent of the sea and the fragrant pine trees up in the hills filled his nose. He had not felt this happy for a long, long time.

"If you think this is amazing, you should see it in the Jurassic period." He mused, a boyish smile spreading across his lips. "Mars burnt like an enormous red star in the sky, and you just wouldn't believe the size of the moon. It even looked bigger than the sun."

They sat together for while, the Doctor telling his tales of wonderful prehistoric skies, while Wilf listened quietly in amazement.

"It must be fantastic. Seeing all that." Wilf muttered.

"I could take you to see it for yourself." The Doctor offered. "When the Tardis is fixed. A second trip to the age of the dinosaurs."

"Really?" Wilf's face lit up for a moment, but the excitement quickly faded. "Maybe I shouldn't, though."

"Why not? I'll have you back umm, let's say a second after you left. Maybe a minute."

"I know. I know you can do all that. Still." Wilf sighed and gazed at the Doctor in silence.

"You miss them." The Doctor said softly, knowing the frown on Wilf's face and the sound of hesitation in his voice all too well.

"It's just…We just went off. Without a word. There was no time to check if Donna was alright. I'm mostly worried about her. Seeing her granddad being dragged off. Arrested by those strange policemen. It wouldn't be easy for her. And Sylvia. I'm sure that she is going to have a fit." Wilf sighed. "She promised to call when she gets to the hotel. If I am not home, she'll be worried sick." Wilf looked back at the Doctor. "I'm sorry Doctor. Seeing the senator with his daughter today...It just reminds me of them."

"No need to say sorry." The Doctor smiled. "I understand. To miss the ones you love. It's only human. I'll bring you back home as soon as the Tardis is repaired."

"What about you Doctor? Are you going to travel with _him_ now?" Wilf asked.

"Seems like it. Yes." The Doctor answered, rubbing in his eyes, it has been a long day. "At least, as long as he wants to tag along."

"You better be careful. I'm not saying he's evil. I'm just not sure. That crazy sound inside his head. You think he's completely cured from that?"

"I'll keep an eye on him." The Doctor gave Wilf a reassuring wink.

Wilf nodded. "Guess travelling around and seeing all those wonderful things you talked about. It's just not that wonderful when you have no-one to show it to." Wilf said wisely.

"No. It isn't." The Doctor answered, struck by the honesty of the old man. "But now I've finally found someone to share it with." The Doctor beamed back a smile at Wilf that said it all. "Which is much-much better, even if he is a crazy megalomaniac psychopath."

After a while, the Doctor stood up and went back inside, leaving Wilf to enjoy the view.

"Master." The Doctor took out the phial with Dea Pompous's blood. "Master, fancy to do a late-night bio-analysis with the old chemistry set before bedtime? The first one who gets the protein profiling done gets to pick out our next destination!"

There was no reply.

The Doctor went to look for him in the library and in his bedroom. The Master wasn't there. He went down into the cellar, and looked in the kitchen and the library, but he couldn't find him. After he had searched frantically through the entire Tardis, the Doctor could only draw one conclusion.

The Master was gone.

**3.**

The lights in all of the rooms in the villa were out, and most of the inhabitants, slaves and master alike, had already gone to bed. The courtyard next to the kitchen was covered in darkness when the Master arrived. He had climbed over the garden walls and had been following the strong sense of garum to find this place in the labyrinth of corridors. It was a small miracle that he didn't have the guard dogs on his heels. For all he knew, those pills he found in the Doctor's nightstand could just have been vitamin supplements. It turned out they weren't, and the entire pack of mutts was now sleeping off their drug-induced sleep, leaving the Master to sneak around undisturbed.

He studied the yard, and saw in the pale moonlight that shone down over the rooftops that there were 13 huge pots, each of them large enough to have a fully grown man huddled up inside. They were buried to the rim in the sand. He was about to come closer to investigate, when a dark figure crossed the yard. The Master hid behind a column, and waited. A pale hand appeared out of the cloak and pulled the hood down, revealing the pale, delicate features of the senator's daughter.

Dea glanced over the courtyard. She was visibly nervous. A second figure appeared from the kitchen, followed by a third. They were carrying a bucket in each hand. When they stepped out into the moonlight, the Master recognized Balcuba, the loud maid who he had met in the kitchen, and who had all the charm and looks of a kitchen-harpy. The third woman wasn't exactly a beauty either. She had a crow's nest of red hair and was at least a head shorter than Dea or Balcuba, but she did share the other women's thin frame.

"Are they sleeping?" Balcuba asked.

"Pompous went to bed early, and the light in the sleeping quarters of the servants went out a good hour ago." Dea answered in a whisper.

"And did you lock up the slaves for the night Corda?"

The red-haired woman just nodded.

"Let's start feeding them then." Balcuba carried the buckets to the side of one of the pots and lifted the wooden lid. A strange sound, like something wet and slimy was blowing out airbubbles, rose up from inside.

"Keep them quiet." Dea hushed, keeping an eye out at the corridor leading to the bedchamber of her father.

"You heard our little princess." Balcuba muttered as she emptied the pail into the pot. "Keep your mouths shut and gobble up your supper like good little boys and girls."

The Master heard whatever was inside the pot slurp down the soup hungrily, making a sound as if a thick liquid was sucked through a straw. When her buckets were empty, Bulcuba went back inside, while the woman, who apparently was called Corda, poured her load into the second pot. The Master watched with growing curiosity how the two women returned multiple times from the kitchen, and emptied their buckets into each one of the 13 pots till they had covered them all.

"You know, it wouldn't hurt if you came off your high horse for once and helped us out around feeding time. Or are you too afraid to soil your pretty well-manicured hands?" The woman scoffed as she wiped the sweat from her forehead.

"That's a real good idea. And what would Pompous make of it if he sees me carrying buckets full of brew into the courtyard? He's already suspicious of the whole situation as it is. Do you want him to find out what we are trying to do here?" Dea snapped back.

"The man is as dumb as the backside of a mule. You said so yourself. Now that Doctor-fellow. That's an entire different story. One look at him and I knew he meant trouble. You sure he didn't find out anything?"

"He doesn't have a clue what's going on. Don't you worry." Dea reassured her. It wasn't the Doctor she was worried about.

Patience was not one of his stronger traits, and the Master found it hard to keep himself in hiding till the women left. As soon as they disappeared back into the house, he headed out into the courtyard and removed the lid from one of the pots. He squatted down beside it, and looked down into a foul smelling liquid.

In the scarce moonlight, he saw something stir inside the brown murky soup. It was reaching out to him with a weak, tentacle like arm.

4.

It wasn't difficult to trace down the Master. The Doctor just had to follow his scent that brought him right to the doorsteps of Magnus Pompous's villa.

The Doctor furrowed his brows. It was odd that the Master would choose to go back to senator's house by his own. What was he up to? He was still busy puzzling it out when he ran into the Master, heading for the other direction. A pack of angry dogs barked madly behind him, but luckily they were at the other side of the wall.

"Where were you?" The Doctor demanded.

"Out. Taking a stroll." The Master answered with a smug grin. "Did you miss me?"

"What were you in doing in the senator's house?"

"I didn't go inside. Like I said, I only went out for some fresh air."

"Oh I wish I could believe you." The Doctor laughed with incredulity. "But I don't. What were you doing in there?" The Doctor repeated, more sternly now. Then a thought hit him. "Don't tell me you were trying to steal something from the workshop."

"Please. As if that those bits of space junk would ever interest me." The Master scoffed. He did sneak into the senator's workshop to take a look at what he could find. He was trying to make a new laserscrewdriver, but the Doctor didn't need to know this.

Loosing his patience, the Doctor grabbed him by the front of his tunic and shoved him against the wall. "_What did you do?_"

The light went on in one of the rooms, and someone started shouting at the dogs in an irritated voice. The Master gazed back at the Doctor.

"Maybe we should continue this conversation somewhere else before they set the dogs on us." He said with a stony grin.

**5.**

The following morning, the Doctor went to visit the senator on his own.

"You would like to have my daughter's what?" The senator asked in astonishment.

"Your daughter's earring." The Doctor repeated. Dea put her plate of pea stew that her father was forcing her to have for breakfast aside on the small table and sat up from the recliner. She stared back at the Doctor with alarm.

"Well actually, I don't both of them. I just need the one dangling from her left ear."

"But…why? I'm sorry Doctor, I'm not a physician, but what does it have to do with her illness?"

"It's an allergy thing." The Doctor nodded. "It's like when some people cannot wear copper bracelets without getting a rash. Only now, it's affecting her general health." He explained, trying his best to sound convincing, but Magnus was still looking puzzled.

"But why only her earrings? Why not her necklace or her bracelets, or her rings?"

"Ah." The Doctor took a deep breath. This would need some clarification indeed. "I still need to proof it of course, but by the look of her left ear, it seems to me that the skin is slightly more red than the right ear, which to the trained eye, is an early sign of inflammation. I'll take that most of Dea's jewels that she's wearing are made of gold or silver?"

"Oh yes. I've purchased every single one of them for her from a highly respectable jeweller who also supplies the emperor's court. He only uses the purest materials. Besides, if he ever tries to cheat on me with inferior quality work, I would ruin his reputation and he would never be able to sell anything to anyone in this town again." The senator boasted.

"Well, the thing with precious metal is, whether it is gold or silver, if you want to make anything out of it, you have to dilute it. Pure gold is as soft as butter and you would just ruin the beautiful patterns in your sealring the first thing you give a hand to someone with a bit of a strong grip. Not a lot of people know this, but pure gold doesn't even have the colour of…well gold. It's more like silver, whitish gray of colour. Boring really. Now if you mix in a good helping of copper, then you'll get that yellow golden shine that's so incredible fashionable these days."

"So, you're telling me that I've been fooled, and that the copper traces in my daughter's golden earring is making her ill?" The senator took in a deep breath. "Oh I will give orders to arrest that jeweller immediately! How dare he to sell fake jewellery to the senator of Ephesus!"

"Oh no, no no senator!" The Doctor said hurriedly. Blimey, had he actually been listening to anything he said? "They might keep it a secret, but everyone does it. If you want to arrest him, you have to arrest everyone in the trade."

"But he compromised my daughter's health!"

"It's copper in the earring is making your daughter ill, at least, that's what we're going to try to find out. The merchant can't help it that your daughter might have an allergy."

The Doctor turned to Dea. "Now, if I may?" He held out his hand.

"What are you going to do with it?" Dea asked.

"Oh the usual stuff, drop it in a mortar, grind it into tiny little pieces before I melt it down. That sort of thing." He replied with an enthusiastic smile. It was actually not that far from what he had in mind.

"But there won't be anything left!" Dea objected, and shot a glance at the senator. "You bought this for me father. It was a gift for my 16th birthday. I don't want it destroyed."

"I could also just scrape a bit off." The Doctor tried.

"Or damaged." Dea huffed.

"My sweet child, you shouldn't care that much about that earring. If you desire, I could buy you a dozen new ones next time I visit Rome. Your good health is far more important for me." The senator nodded at the Doctor. "She will give you the earring. As long as you find out what's happening to her."

"Right." The Doctor smiled, when Dea finally, but reluctantly handed it over to him. "Don't you worry, I'll return it as soon as I've finished analysing it. You'll be fit as a fiddle within a week!"

"No doubt I will." Dea said with a stony face. She deeply regretted that she had pleaded with Pompous to let the Master go. He must have noticed the little white pearl set in her earring while he was talking to her. When her father said goodbye to the Doctor, Corda appeared from the kitchen. she came to stand next to her mistress and studied the long stranger with his peculiar manners, who seemed to know and suspect much more about them than met the eye. Dea glanced over at her. Both women were sharing the same thought. The Doctor and his company were getting too dangerous.

"Follow him, but don't let him see you." Dea whispered. "Find out where they are staying. I'll tell Pompous that I have sent you out for a choir."

Corda, the most silent one of the three sisters, gave a slight nod. When the Doctor headed off, she went after him, walking at least 20 steps behind.

**6.**

"And here it is! I've got the earring!" The Doctor exclaimed as he strode back into the Tardis. He dislodged the white sphere out of the golden disk. "And I've got the egg. If it is an egg." He sniffed, and held it against the light, making the tiny cracks visible. "You're right." He muttered as he studied it closely. "The surface is definitely fractured."

"I'm always right." The Master said. He was sitting at the Tardis console with his feet up on the dashboard with his hands behind his head. "By the way, would you not ask your pet-human to babysit me again? It's humiliating." He added with a sardonic grin, but he didn't seem genuinely irritated.

Why, what's wrong with a little humiliation? It builds up character." The Doctor teased. "And Wilf? Did he behave himself?"

Wilf jumped from his chair and gave the Doctor a mock salute. "Yes Doctor sir. He didn't leave or tamper with the Tardis, as you've instructed. He was annoying like hell, thought."

"Wouldn't have expected anything else." The Doctor muttered, and he tossed the egg over to the Master who caught it with one hand. "This thing is nothing but an empty shell. Whatever was inside came out already. The question is, what was in it?"

"It's called a Stergeg, that what's hatched out of this. They are a gas-based species. A parasitic lifeform that wrecks havoc in its host." The Master explained. After he was caught during his midnight stroll, he had to give the Doctor some information on what was happening in casa Pompous to get him off his back. He had told him about the earring, but he was still keeping some vital information behind.

"Stergegs? I've never heard of them." The Doctor furrowed his brows in suspicion.

"That's because they're rare, as in almost extinct. I've tried to lay my hands on one of them when I was still in charge of dr. Lazarus's laboratory. I knew about their ability to hijack their victim's central nervous system without killing them. I figured that if I could extract the genetic code of one of these creatures, I could create a recombinant virus that could be used to enslave the entire human population."

"As if the Archangel network wasn't enough mind control." The Doctor remarked disapprovingly.

"You know me Doctor." The Master grinned. "There always should be a backup plan. Anyway, the project didn't work out, mainly because my top-scientist met his demise in a very unfortunate _accident_ before we got the whole sequence cloned, so I had to stick with the Archangel network in the end." The Master gave the Doctor a meaningful look. If the righteous Doctor wanted to play his favourite blame game again, he also had a couple of aces up his sleeves.

"Is that what happened? The senator's daughter has one of those parasite things? Inside her head? Tunnelling through her brains like a worm in an apple?" Wilf asked. He was getting rather upset.

"We don't know that for sure yet." The Doctor said. He turned to the Master. "Are you sure that you've identified the right species? How can you be so confident by looking at an empty eggshell?"

"We could try to extract some DNA for sequencing." The Master opted. "I'm sure I can still recognize a part of the genetic code. I've a very good memory for that sort of things."

The goodwill of the Master rather surprised the Doctor. "If you're right, then we should be able to pick up trace amounts of the same genetic code in Dea's blood sample. That would definitely proof that she is infected." He went over to the console and searched the cupboards below the dashboard. He brought out a cardboard box and blew off the dust to reveal a junior chemistry set. It had two cartoon children characters on it, screaming the message "science is FUN!" into the big text balloon floating above their heads.

"Oh you're going to let me play with your chemistry set?" The Master clapped in his hands. "Oh joy, I can hardly wait." He grinned, faking to be delighted.

"You'll be amazed how much they put in these kits." The Doctor said, ignoring the Master's sarcastic response, and took the phial with blood sample out of his leather pouch.

"Let's get started."

**7.**

The two Timelords retreated to the lab to crack the genetic code of the samples, while Wilf went off to bed early. When Doctor waited for the green solution of chemicals to bubble away on the burner, he glanced over at his labpartner, and saw how the Master was scribbling down a formula on the bench-top. He also noticed how the Master chewed on his pencil when he was in thought, and stuck it behind his ear every time he had to use his hands to mix components together. Suddenly, the Doctor found himself quite incapable to stop looking at him. It reminded him too much of how things used to be, when they were still children and friends at the academy. To be in the same room with the Master, tampering away with glass vials and tubes in silence, just completely erased the distance that had been between them in all those long, horrible, lonely years, and filled the Doctor with a feeling of familiarly and warm intimacy.

"What are you looking at?" The Master, noticing that he was being watched, he gazed up from his experiment.

The Doctor averted his eyes and quickly turned back to whatever strange brew he was concocting. "Nothing. Nothing. Just checking if you're still doing your job and was not lazying around."

"I'm not working for you." The Master replied quietly, a hint of a smile playing on his lips. If he sensed anything, felt the same about the whole absurd situation, he wasn't going to show. "I'm doing this for my own interest. I'm actually curious to find out if this really is a Stergeg egg. I hate to be proven wrong."

"Do you have the extraction buffer ready?" The Doctor removed the glass Erlenmeyer flask containing the bubbling brew with pliers from the burner and placed it on the bench.

"Almost." The Master picked up his flask with a colourless buffer and took a sniff. He then added two drops of bright pink liquid to the formula. "That should do it." He said, giving it a good swirl.

"Right." The Doctor held the empty eggshell between his thumb and indexfinger. "Ready?" He asked, drawing up his eyebrows in anticipation.

"Get on with it." The Master murmured, slightly irritated.

The Doctor dropped the pearly sphere into the green brew. It hissed when it hit the surface and dissolved completely. "Your turn." The Doctor said with a smile of accomplishment.

The Master poured his entire flask into the Doctor's brew. It turned from green to bright pink immediately, and started to smoke.

"What did you do? That's not supposed to do that." The Doctor muttered. The smoke hit his lungs, and he coughed violently before glancing up at the Master. "This stuff is poisonous. We have to get out." He breathed with alarm. His lungs stung like he had inhaled a swarm of angry bees. He had a light and dizzy feeling in his head while the strength in his limbs was leaving him. A minute longer in the lab and he was ready to pass out. The Master, in contrast, appeared to be not affected at all, and gazed back at him with a sly smile that reminded him too much of Harold Saxon for comfort.

"Oh don't you worry about me Doctor." He grabbed the Doctor by the back of his neck and held his face right above the smoking toxic brew. "Take a deep breath of this. It will calm you down. Help you unwind. You've been way too strung up lately."

The Doctor struggled to get up, but he couldn't. The toxin in his blood was turning his muscles into soft butter, and soon the Master didn't need to hold him down any longer. He was dangling above the brew like a limp string puppet.

"That's it. Breathe Doctor. Breathe it all in."

The Master's voice faded, and slowly the world turned black in front of the Doctor's eyes.

_**TBC. As always, please review and comment.**_


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter 4**

**1.**

The thing with trust is, once it's broken, it's a most difficult thing to restore. Because, however hard one would try to make amends afterwards, you would always keep seeing the potential downfall in the relationship, and be able to point out _any_ possible way your alleged "friend" could screw you over again, and again, and again.

The Master realized this all too well. He also knew that it would be unwise to provoke the Doctor, who still held the key to the only Tardis in existence.

But he didn't care.

If the Doctor was really coming after him, it would be like the good old times again. It would be back to the scheming and plotting, to the complexity of mutual loathing and understanding, and the seething undertone of tension between them both that would undoubtedly lead to another deadly confrontation. He wasn't afraid of it. He welcomed it. At least, everything would go back to how it was before, and he would know how to deal with the "old" Doctor, the one who he considered his nemesis and he had learned to hate. It would be like slipping back into an old, comfortable jacket that he hadn't worn for a long time, and his current life, which he found most confusing and almost impossible to adjust to say the least, would finally be over.

He had taken the Doctor sonic screwdriver, and after a bit of tampering, he was able to remove the biolock from the device. After a short walk down the hillside, he arrived at the Artemis temple. In the middle of the night, the plaza in front of the great temple was deserted, except for the hordes of stray dogs and cats searching for scraps between the cracks of the pavement. Quickly, he climbed the steps up to the platform, and in front of the entrance of the inner sanctum, he whizzed the sonic over the primitive, but efficient locks of the massive wooden doors till it sprung open with a loud click. He entered the vast chamber, which was now lit by rows of oil lamps, bathing the alabaster walls in a warm golden glow. The Master glanced around. For once, there were no bothersome priests or priestesses in sight. He crossed the great hall to the statue of Artemis. After removing the lose slate at the statue's feet, he retrieved the wooden box and opened it. The alien egg lay between the empty eggshells, shedding a dim, green glow over the Master's face. He grinned and picked it up with his thumb and indexfinger, holding it against the light of the oillamps. The creature inside the sphere spun angrily around like an mini tornado.

"There you are! I knew I would find you here!" The Doctor's cheerful voice echoed through the vast space.

The Master almost dropped the egg on the marble floor.

"Oh careful with that!" The Doctor said, casually strolling towards him with his hands in his pockets, as if the Master hadn't just pushed his face into toxic smoke only half an hour ago. "You nearly made an omelette out of it."

"How did you-" The Master halted, and shook his head in both dismay and irritation. He really didn't want to know, but the Doctor was in a most talkative mood.

"That formula you scribbled on the bench-top." The Doctor explained. "I saw you calculating the grams of dry sodiumborate powder that were needed for the solution. Only the molecular weight you used was not correct. The compound you wanted to add was heavier, 45 grams heavier to be precise, which is exact the molecular weight of sodium triclorideborate. Combine your solution with my mixture, and it would create a narcotic gas." The Doctor halted in front of him and stared at the little white sphere in the Master's hand. "You were not the only one who made an antidote on the side and hid it in the buffer. I took a good sniff of mine while you were busy adding the finishing touches." The Doctor held out his hand. His face turned stern and decisive.

"Give me that egg." He demanded.

A cocky grin spread over the Master's lips, and slowly, he shook his head.

"I'm serious Master. Hand it over. What do you want to do with it anyway?"

"Let's call it a safety measure. Something I would like to keep for a rainy day."

"That thing inside - that mind-controlling parasitic creature." The Doctor pointed angrily at the shimmering sphere in his hand. "You want to use it to harm someone. I can't just let you keep it."

"Isn't that a bit over-precautious?' The Master scoffed. "I don't even have someone specific in mind yet."

"You drugged me to get all the way back to the temple to get it. You must have a plan for it. I know you. Right now you're thinking up something dreadful that would probably turn out into yet another disaster."

"You give me far too much credit Doctor. I'm really just making it up as I go along."

"Why are you doing this?" There was a hint of disappointment in the Doctor's voice. "You're acting out like a spoiled brat! Is it because of the drums? Because they are no longer there to tell you what to do? Is that what this is all about?"

"Stop it." The Master muttered.

But the Doctor wouldn't stop. Not now he was getting close to the truth. "That's it, isn't?" The Doctor remarked. "If you're not fighting me, you just don't know what to do with yourself. If you're not the old Master, the insane rambling madman who plots and murders on the drum's commands, you're nothing. You're rather Rassilon's string puppet than a complete nobody."

"I said stop it!" The Master grabbed the Doctor by the collar of his coat and shoved him against the statue. "Stop trying to get inside my head again!" He hissed. "Like you know what's going on! You don't know me! You _don't_!"

He held his gaze on the Doctor, eyes unblinking. One look at him was enough to make his anger flare up like wildfire. What would _he_ know about fear, or grief, or remorse? The good and righteous Doctor, had he ever done one single thing in his entire life that he actually regretted?

The Doctor stayed calm. He had to, for the Master's sake.

"When I was in the tower with you." He said softly. "I entered your mind. I saw a part of you that made me understand you better. I took you out of there for a reason. I wanted to help. I still want to help."

The Master let go of him and tore away.

"Listen. I'm not here to fight you, or to punish you, or any of those things." The Doctor said, more firmly now. "If you seek punishment for all those horrible things you've done, you won't receive it from me. You want to make amends? Stop messing around, and help me." He pleaded. "Help me to find out what's wrong with the senator's daughter. Help to me to get Wilf back with his family. That's what you should do with this immortal life of yours. It's nothing to be afraid of. It's nothing threatening. Don't you see?"

The doctor paused, and looked at the Master, searching for a sign of understanding.

"It's a second chance. Seize it. Run with it."

"Is that what I should be then? A second Doctor?" The Master remarked sarcastically.

"You're still the Master." The Doctor stated. "The one that the bright eight year old boy who gazed in the Untempered Schism never had the chance to become. Unlike him, you do have a choice now."

The Master lowered his head, swallowing hard.

"Give me that egg." The Doctor said in a gentle voice, and held out his hand.

The Master kept the white sphere clenched into his fist as he held it above the other Timelord's hand. The faint green light shimmered between his fingers.

"Master." The Doctor urged.

"I could…I could help you." The Master considered.

The Doctor let out a sigh of relief.

"Or…maybe not."

The Master swirled around, and with one badly aimed throw he hurled the egg at the bronze statue of Artermis behind him. Instead, it headed for one of the two marble griffin statues that flanked the Goddess. A puff of green smoke escaped when it hit the marble and shattered into crude pieces of shell.

"Why did you do that?" The Doctor exclaimed.

"Oh don't you see Doctor?" The Master responded gleefully. "I'm seizing the moment. Like you said. I'm running with what's been given me." He cocked his head to the side, his grin fading. "Let's face it. You can't make an omelette without cracking an egg or two. Let's just say that I'm taking this recovery plan of yours in consideration." He started giggling insanely. "Today, I am afraid - is pretty much a relapse day."

The green smoke released from the egg, slowly rose up in delicate silky slivers, and entered the beak of the stone griffin.

And then the Doctor couldn't believe his eyes.

Where there had been white polished marble feathers, colours were emerging, a magnificent blue with an almost metallic shine of insect shields. It spread over the statue, the stone gradually eaten away by the blue stain. The beak became a sharp yellow. The gilded eyes became blue orbs that stared into the world with a growing awareness. Within a few seconds, the four meter high creature became alive. She unfolded her magnificent wings, the tips almost touching the ceiling, and called out at the two Timelords, producing a strange powerful sound that was like the roar of a lion and the call of an eagle.

"Oh, you-" The Doctor uttered with a look of sheer wonder. "Look at you. You are absolutely magnificent!"

"Deadly." Corrected the Master, and started backing away from the stone creature.

The griffin's right claw came down, sending the earth trembling underneath their feet. Placing herself right in front of the Timelords, the stone beast called again, sounding more threatening and more malicious.

The Doctor suddenly felt a hand weighing down on his shoulder. He glanced at his side and saw that the Master was leaning on him for balance while was fiddling fervently with the straps of his sandal.

"What are you doing?" He asked in puzzlement.

"I'm taking them off." The Master answered, keeping a nervous eye on the griffin. "It's quite impossible to run with these."

"Don't be daft! You can't outrun a griffin. She's got wings!"

"Wasn't planning to." The Master managed to loosen the last strap, and tossing the sandals away, before swirled around. "I just have to outrun you!"

"Right." The Doctor mumbled as he watched with a raised eyebrow how the Master fled out of the inner sanctum. He turned back to the mythical creature who was approaching slowly with the azure blue feathers in her neck raised up high in a threatening display.

"Listen to me." The Doctor tried. "My name is the Doctor. I don't know exactly what you are, but I think I know what you want. Listen to me. This planet is taken. You can't stay here, but I can help. If you and your friends would come along with me, leave this world and the senator's daughter alone, I have a machine that can travel in time and space. I can bring you somewhere safe. A planet that is uninhabited, where you can live, and spent your days in peace. What do you say?"

The griffin bowed her head towards him and shrieked angrily. A claw flashed out and missed the Doctor's head by just the length of a hair.

"What are you doing, you idiot?"

The shout came from above. The Doctor glanced up to see the Master standing on the gallery on the second floor that was only accessible from a flight of stairs outside the inner sanctum. He raised his eyebrows, pleasantly surprised. At least the Master didn't left him to fend for himself. Maybe he was finally reaching him.

"Don't just stand there like an attractive _eat me!_ sign. You can't reason with it!" The Master yelled. It was true, the parasite adapted itself to the intelligence of the host, which in this case, had not much more than a stony birdbrain to work with. "Get out of the chamber! NOW!"

The Doctor finally stopped staring at the creature and made a run for it. The griffin stretched out her wings and leaped into the sky. Just when the Doctor came close to the entrance, the griffin landed right in front of him and with a mighty lash of her tail, swept down the front row of columns. They went down like a short line of dominos, and smashed into the wooden doors, blocking the exit. The Doctor swirled around to dash back to the Artermis statue. The griffin turned around also, and took to the air, her talons flashing. Feeling the hot breath of the creature in his neck, the Doctor ran into the arcade. The griffin followed him, but being too large to pass between the pillars, she smashed the tip of her right wing into one of the columns, where it shattered in pieces.

"You're still made out of stone." The Doctor muttered, as he glanced back over his shoulder and dodged the broken marble that rained down on him like hail. The griffin screeched and dived down at the Doctor, who ducked just in time to prevent himself from being beheaded by the razor sharp talons. He then turned a 90 degrees, and started zigzagging around the line of columns. The creature flew after him, but was incapable to make the sharp turns without smashing into the obstacles. She screamed in rage when she lost a larger piece of her left wing, tipping her off balance. It was followed by a sudden dive and a crash into another pillar that broke off her entire left wing. Ground-bound, she quickly rose back to her fours to continue the chase. Her powerful hind legs propelled her forward and cut down the distance between her and the Doctor in just a couple of heart beats. The Doctor was back at the statue when a claw hit him and sent him rolling. Lying on his back, he saw the Master looking down at him from the balustrade before the griffin's massive head loomed over him and slammed her claw on his arm.

The Doctor struggled to free himself, but there was no escape, he was pinned down on the spot. With his free hand, he rummaged through his pockets, but to his panic, he couldn't find his sonic screwdriver. The griffin cocked her head to the side and glared down at the Timelord with a vicious glint in her dark blue eyes. She lowered her head, beak open and her bloodred tongue sticking out, ready to strip the flesh from her prey's bones.

"Stop wriggling!" The Master yelled with panic in his voice. "Just...just don't move!"

"What?" The Doctor shouted back. He could hear the blood rushing through his veins. "How's that gonna help!"

"Listen, I know this!" The Master replied. "I know what they're after. You'll be fine as long as you do exactly as I say. Trust me on this!"

"Trust you?" The doctor blurted out. "I'm sorry, but are you serious?"

"Shh, keep your voice down! Be very quiet, and breathe. Breathe slowly, but deeply."

"Last time you told me to breathe…"

"Oh never mind that! And would you just stop talking!" The Master shouted back in frustration. "Listen to me for once! Breathe, Doctor. Breathe. In and out. In…and out."

The Doctor took in a deep breath of air, and slowly he let it escape from his lungs. In - and out. In - and out. The griffin angled her head and blinked her blue eyes.

The Doctor's duel hearts rattled madly inside his chest. In – and out, he kept reminding himself. _Oh for once, let the Master turn out to be reliable._ He didn't want to end up being gobbled up by a ridiculously large BC version of bigbird.

In -and out.

In -and out.

The griffin brushed with her beak over the Doctor's shirt and flared her nostrils.

It was as if she was picking up a scent.

In -and out.

And then the giant stone bird started to cough.

The Doctor had never seen a bird cough before. He supposed there was always a first time for everything. It looked rather painful, as if something was stuck in the griffin's throat or as if she was trying to remove a furball. The Doctor flashed an anxious look at the Master.

"Oh good. She picked up the traces of CO2 in your breath." The Master said with visible relief. "Now, keep absolute still."

The griffin opened her beak. A green, mucous-like substance glided over the soft surface and dripped down the tip where it dangled right above the Doctor's face, clinging on to the tongue by a thinning thread.

"Oh you got to be kidding me." The Doctor muttered, and tried to turn his head away from the drop of nasty slime.

"Keep still!" The Master hissed. "Don't you see? It's not done yet. The eyes are still blue. It's still retreating out of the statue."

The Doctor sucked in a deep breath to steady his nerves. It wasn't easy. His limbs felt like spring coils, ready to jump. He watched with growing disgust how the green mucous gathered into a thick blob at the tip of the griffin's tongue. As it happened, the dazzling blue colour in the feathers of the mythical creature started fading away, and slowly, it turned back to the white of marble. The blue was also draining away from the eyes, and they became once again gilded orbs.

The Doctor finally understood what the Master was trying to do.

As the parasite was leaving its old host and was about to enter a new one, the griffin was slowly turning back into stone, leaving it harmless.

"On my signal, roll to your right. Don't let the parasite touch you." The Master instructed. "Trust me Doctor. You'll be fine."

"I trust you." The Doctor finally replied with a small smile of relief, and he meant it with whole his heart.

"NOW!"

Without a second thought, the Doctor rolled to the right. The green blob splashed apart on the marble next to him where it immediately reassemble itself into a wormlike form. It crawled in the Doctor's direction.

"Don't move!"

Just when it was about to creep onto the Doctor's back, a red laserbeam shot through the air and incinerated the creature in a puff of black smoke.

"And bull's eye!" The Master exclaimed triumphantly and punched the air.

The Doctor slowly turned on his back. "You killed it." He muttered. Stunned. He gazed up at the Master.

The Master's smile vanished from his face. "Oh don't start." He groaned. "It was a mindless parasite! It was about to crawl into your head and make a migraine cocktail out of your grey matter."

"That's not the point." The Doctor huffed. "You killed it with a laserbeam. You stole my sonicscrewdriver and turned it into a murder weapon!"

"I just borrowed it for an upgrade."

"Master!"

"Oh hush!" The Master responded with a fierce tone in his voice. "You and your incessant nagging. Don't use the paradox machine to tamper with the timeline Master! Oh you shouldn't mind-control these pea-brained Earthlings Master! Stop decimating my pet race Master! You know what Doctor? I just saved your sorry bones from being picked clean by that giant monster, although I really shouldn't. The only suitable way for you to act is to kiss my feet and worship the ground I walk on!"

"Master!" The Doctor shouted impatiently.

"What?"

The Doctor shot an anxious look over the Master's shoulder, meaning someone was standing behind him. Finally getting the clue, the Master slowly turned around. He removed the safety lock from the sonic screwdriver and held his thumb on the laser button, ready to fire.

A spike shot through the air and pierced his hand. The Master uttered a scream of pain and surprise, and dropped the sonic on the floor. The silent, red-haired woman from the kitchen appeared from behind a pillar. The Master bald his good hand into a fist and was about to hit her when a long black spike protruded out of the tip of the woman's indexfinger. It elongated at an astonishing speed and only stopped when it was almost sticking into the Master's neck.

Dea Pompous stepped out of the shadows and picked up the sonic screwdriver that had rolled in front of her feet. She studied the device. "I was right. You're definitely not from around here." She said and smiled confidently when she came closer to the Master, who stood motionless and with his head raised up to avoid being stabbed by her accomplice.

"In fact, I go as far to say that you are not even from this planet." She nodded at the redhead, and the Master felt the spike sting in his flesh. "Tell me, finally, what kind of delicious creatures are you?" Dea asked.

"If I tell you. I'll have to kill you." The Master replied with a stony grin.

The spike shot out, penetrating his flesh and making him cry out in agony.

"Please! Don't hurt him!" The Doctor pleaded.

Dea looked down at the troubled Timelord. "It's just a flesh wound." She stated coldly, and to the Doctor's horror, she dug her finger into the wound, making his victim squirm. A fresh gush of blood dripped down the Master's neck, staining the border of his tunic crimson.

"Stop it! Just stop it! Please!" The Doctor shouted and struggled to free his arm from underneath the statue, but it was now locked in its position, fixed down by the griffin's stony grip.

"Don't react so dramatic Doctor." Dea replied with a malicious grin. "I thought you were a physician, you should know better. She didn't hit the major arteries. The blood loss will weaken him, but your friend will survive."

She rested her hands on the balustrade and leaned forward. "Actually, you should more be worrying about yourself." Dea said, her blue eyes flashing dangerously. She lifted the sonicscrewdriver and pushed in the red button. A laserbeam struck the stone griffin and blew the left part of the statue apart. Pieces of stone rained down, forcing the Doctor to shield his head with his free arm.

"Don't!" The Master yelled. He pushed forward and was about to grab Dea by her neck when the sharp sting of the spike reminded him painfully of his own injuries.

"Be careful there Marcellus. Corda does all the butchering in the kitchen. She knows exactly where to cut." Dea said with a devious smile, and fired for a second time.

"Doctor!" The Master's hoarse cries were lost in the explosion that followed when the laserbeam collided with the griffin's head, sending down a violent avalanche of stone and marble that completely buried the helpless Doctor.

"Doctor! DOCTOR!"

When the dust settled over the sacred chamber, the statue of the griffin was gone. Except for the pile of stone ruins, nothing else was left of it. The Doctor was trapped underneath the rubble, buried alive.

The Master's eyes grew wide when Dea slowly turned to look at him. A cruel smile played at the corners of her lips when she saw the expression on his face.

"You took one of ours." She justified. "It's only fair if I get to take one of yours in return."

The Master clenched his fists, ignoring the pain and the blood gushing out of the fresh wound. He was devastated, shocked to the core. The Doctor…the Doctor was gone. His mind could not accept it. It was an idea too frightening and too absurd for him to comprehend. He glared at the frail frame of Dea Pompous who stood before him, radiating such confidence and indifference, as if nothing had happened, as if she had simply evened out their losses by wiping another small and insignificant life from the face of the planet. The way she looked at him, it made his blood boil. It made him want to wrench her petite little neck till it popped like a string of Chinese fire crackers. It pushed him to break every bone in her scrawny little body and crack her skull open like a bloody egg.

He was about to grab hold his tormentor in an angry attempt to do all that, when he sensed a stir of life coming from underneath the rubble.

_Doctor?_ He closed his eyes, the ancient telepathic bond between them provided a lifeline for the Master to find him. Faint like the light of a far away star, he could still sense his presence, and he could still feel the soft beating of his twin hearts resonate in his own.

"There's no point in grieving over his death." Dea said, making the mistake to take her captive's sudden silence for sorrow. "I promise you'll be joining him soon enough." She added in a low voice.

The Master opened his eyes again, and calmly, he stared at her. His face was devoid of emotion other than a deep loathing.

"Let's take him to the others." Dea told Coda. "It's around feeding time. Our sisters are hungry."

**2.**

The following morning in the villa of the senator, Magnus Pompous was rising from his bed and was about to head to the aula for breakfast when he heard the commotion in the hallway. He was amazed when one of his servants rushed with a flushed face.

"What's the matter Gaius?" The senator asked.

"Dominus! It's the Doctor. He wants to see you."

"The Doctor? At this early hour?" The senator muttered, surprised. "Well, tell him to wait in the aula. I'm not properly dressed yet to receive him."

"Yes dominus, right away." The servant was about to head out again when the door to the senator's bedroom swung open and the Doctor came rushing in. His face was bruised. A vicious cut ran across his forehead. His clothes were torn and dirty, and he was close to being frantic.

"My friend, what happened to you?" The senator asked worriedly.

"Exploding griffin. Had to crawl out of tons of rumble. But never mind that. I lost them!" The Doctor rambled on, his eyes wide with worries. "I lost Wilf and the Mas…Marcellus. I was at the Artemis temple when they took Marcellus. The explosion knocked me out. When I woke up again and went back to the Tardis, Wilf was gone. I can't smell Marcellus. I don't know what they've done to them."

"Your uncle and Marcellus are gone?" Pompous asked, ignoring the rest of the Doctor's ramblings on purpose, particularly the comment on him being unable to smell his slave. "But who took them? And why?"

The Doctor ran his hands through his hair in despair. "Your daughter Dea, have you seen her?"

"But…I don't understand, what has any of this to do with my daughter?" Worried, Pompous left the room with the Doctor and rushed to Dea's bedchamber. When knocking and calling brought no reply, he let the servants open the door with a spare key. They found her bed empty, with the sheets lying on the floor in a bundle.

"Where is she?" The senator turned to the Timelord in shock. "Doctor, where is my daughter?"

The Doctor tried to remain calm. He had to if he was ever going to get the message delivered to the panicking senator. "Senator, do you remember the pearl earring that I took from Dea?"

The senator nodded cautiously.

"It wasn't a real pearl. It was an eggshell of a creature that's not from this world. The creature has hatched and crawled inside your daughter's head. It's what's making her ill. That's why she's acting so strangely. She's infested with a parasite of the mind!"

"She's possessed by a…monster?" Pompous stammered.

"No, yes, well, something like that. She's in great danger, and so are my friends."

"Where is she?"

"I don't know. She's no longer in control of her own body. She does what the creature wants her to do."

But can't you do something Doctor? Can't you save her?"

"Oh yes, yes I can. But only if I know the name of the parasite. The race of alien. The Master told me they were Stergegs, but of course he lied. That's just a made up name to keep me from becoming suspicious."

The Doctor started pacing up and down the corridor. "Senator, you witnessed the changes of your daughter at first hand. You're the only connection left available to me. Tell me, is there anything strange that you can recall about her, anything odd?"

"I don't know…what am I supposed to tell you? I've told you everything I know."

"Think senator! Think! I could be something small, something you wouldn't even notice if you didn't look it right into the eyes everyday. Give me something to work with…"

The senator shook his head, ashamed that he could not provide the right answer to help his daughter. The Doctor was about to hassle the poor man again when his eyes fell on the row of marble busts that lined the corridor. The stone head of Dea Pompous stared back at him with her questioning eyes. They were large and dark.

"Your daughter has blue eyes." The Doctor turned to the senator. "Her eyes used to be brown, but they've turned blue."

Just like the stone griffin's.

"My physician told me that changes in the coloration of the eyes could occur long after birth." The senator answered nervously. "I didn't think it was worth mentioning. He has assured me that it was a natural thing. Only…"

The Doctor raised an eyebrow. "Only?"

"It also means that the noble bloodline of the Pompous family might not be so pure as we want to believe."

"That's why you kept your daughter out of sight." The Doctor opted. "You were afraid that people would notice." A grin appeared on his face. "Oh Magnus Pompous, you proud, stubborn man, that's it!" The Doctor swirled around and dashed out of the corridor.

"Where are you going?" Pompous asked.

"I need to head back for some supplies. Let me tell you, there is nothing wrong with dark hair and blue eyes. It's a winner combination. Now creepy crawlies in the brain-department, that's a whole different matter. That's a big _big_ worry."

"Doctor?" The senator shouted, understanding very little of it, he was close at the brink of despair.

"Don't worry!" The Doctor answered as he headed out. "You'll get your daughter back! I finally know what these creatures are!"

**3.**

"They're Timewarps." The Master explained reluctantly. "The notorious hybrid creations of the Krillitanes. They were bred to conduct biological warfare against the Krillitanes's enemies. They were forbidden by the Shadow Proclamation, and the laboratories where these abominable creatures mass produced were subsequently destroyed. Their race only survived because some of them were smuggled out in time." He paused and stared at Wilf through the bars of his prison, a miserable expression on his face. It was simply too depressing to count how many days he had spent in a cage by now. If he didn't know any better, he would suspect that Rassilon was behind all this…and was laughing at all of his misfortunes.

They were kept inside a dark vault somewhere deep underneath the earth. He could pick up the smell of mould and decaying vegetation. There were a handful of other prisoners, most of them slaves, shivering bundles of human misery tucked away in the shadows who were too frightened to question their own fate. The Master preferred them that way. At least they knew when to shut up. Unlike the Doctor's human companion.

Considering the circumstances, Wilf had remained rather calm and had been asking the necessary questions ever since he found out that the Master was imprisoned in the other cell. At the first, the Master wasn't too reluctant to speak to him, considering he was bored and in much need of a verbal punching-bag to get rid of his frustrations of his capture. However, as Wilf found out more and more about what happened, the Master's willingness to respond to the old man's query quickly dwindled.

"So you did know what those things were. You just made up another name for it to trick the Doctor." Wilf said accusingly, after taking in a large part of the story. "That's the most stupid thing you could have thought of! What did the Doctor ever done to you? Why do you want to hurt him?"

"I didn't want to _hurt _him." The Master sighed. He wouldn't know what was worse, the prospect that he was going to be fed to a colony of hungry Timewarp maggots or being locked in here with the Doctor's obnoxious surrogate dad.

"And as for what he had ever done to me, he did enough."

"I don't believe you. You're a dirty liar."

"Am I now?" The Master settled down on the floor between the cowering prisoners. Leaning back against the damp walls while resting his head on his hands, he shut his eyes in an effort to block out the filthy cramped room and Wilf's incessant ramblings.

"The Doctor saved you. He never asked you to thank him. He doesn't expect anything from you, but at least, have the bloody decency not to betray him."

The Master was actually relieved when he heard the footsteps approaching his cell. He sat back up and watched with little interest how Balcuba appeared, followed by Coda. The two women each carried a long butcher knife. Balcuba showed her crooked teeth in a wide grin. "Fetch me a human." She said, waving her knife in front of the terrified prisoners.

Coda walked up to the Master and pointed with her knife, gesturing at him to get up. He rolled his eyes and glared back at her.

"I'm _not_ human, you dimwit. You want human flesh, try him." He nodded at the terrified man sitting next to him who immediate started to beg for his life in a mix of Latin and his tribe's language. Coda glanced back at Balcuba, who returned a shrug. It really didn't matter to her who ended up on the chopping board first.

"Right then, get the skinny bugger upstairs." She ordered, and went back out into the corridor, leaving Coda to force the prisoner out of the prison cell.

"Wait! Where are you taking him?" Wilf shouted, following the whole commotion with alarm. "Don't point that knife at him. Can't you see he's terrified! Let him go!"

"Oh put a lid on it, you old fossil! It's your turn soon enough." Barked Balcuba as they left.

"Those two women…what do you call them? Those awful Timewasp creatures, what are they going to do to that man?" Wilf asked, turning to the Master for explanation.

"Timewarps. Not wasps. Anyway, those long pointy knives should be a give away."

"They…they are going to hurt him?"

The Master shrugged and leaned back against the wall. "The Timewarps are a colony forming species. They have a stringent hierarchy in which the survival of their race always comes first. Those who have successfully occupied a host will devote their whole life in taking care of their developing siblings. Unlucky for us, they need a huge amount of energy intake to grow. They also happen to prefer to prey on their future hosts, so that they can absorb traces of their DNA into their own to make the transition into their host's bodies more efficiently. Which in this case, means that they've developed a certain craving for human flesh."

"You mean…they are going to _eat_ him?"

"Not those two. They are not the ones who get to eat. Do please pay some attention. No, they are going to prepare him, cut him up and liquefy him. And then they feed him to their baby sisters for supper." The Master explained in a matter of fact voice.

"But…that's….that's horrible!" Wilf stuttered, horrified. "They're gonna murder that poor lad?"

"You do have trouble grasping the whole Timewarp concept, don't you?" The Master replied dryly. "YES. They are going to kill him. Now shut up about it!"

"How…how could you say that? How could you let them take him away without trying to do something about it!" Wilf pointed accusingly at the Master. "That man is going to lose his life!"

"Why the hell should I care?" Blurted the Master, raising his eyebrows in disbelief that the old man was blaming him for that wretch's fate. "Does it even matter? The man was already dead and his bones turned to dust when you were still an infant wetting your mother's lap. He was supposed to die like this. If the Doctor didn't maroon us in this backwater of a place, those harpies would have killed him anyway."

"Oh I wish the Doctor was here, at least he would have tried to help." Wilf muttered to himself.

"Why are you so bothered?" The master asked. "You don't even know him. It's just one insignificant man. A blip in the continuum of human history. He's nothing."

"A human life is not just nothing." Wilf answered angrily. "There is no such thing as an insignificant life. The Doctor, he would understand. But I'm sure I'm just wasting my breath on you."

The Master stared at Wilf with a look of incredulity, then burst out in cynical laughter.

"You really should have been his dad." He laughed, shaking his head. "It's like I'm hearing the Doctor." The Master moved closer to the bars and tapped on his temple. "You both burned out the same fuse up here." He said with a grin as if he was replying to a very good joke.

"I should never helped you out of that cellar." Wilf replied. "I was right about you. The Doctor said you couldn't help being like that because of the drums. He said it drove you mad and made you do all those horrible things. But he was wrong. Even without the drums you wouldn't have turned out any differently. You are an egocentric monster."

The Master's sarcastic smile slowly turned to stone.

"There's not even a bit of good in you. You're just…rotten. You have a rotten, evil soul!"

The Master suddenly reached out into the adjacent cell and grabbed Wilf by his shirt.

"Don't try this." He hissed dangerously. "Keep talking like this old man, and I swear, if those harpies are not going to kill you, I will."

Wilf's old heart rattled inside his chest when he saw mad resentful anger burning in the Timelord's eyes. He immediately shut up.

After a long, burdened silence, the Master finally let go of Wilf and turned his back on him.

**4.**

It was a great relief for senator Pompous to see the Doctor return so quickly. He had order his servants to search the entire villa and the surrounding streets, but they had found no sign of his beloved daughter. He had just sent them out again to look in the forum, public buildings and the harbour, but he feared more bad news. Even Dea's servant girls didn't know where their mistress had gone. It seemed that she had just disappeared from the face of the earth without leaving a single trace.

"Doctor! Any sign of my darling Dea?" Pompous asked as soon as the Doctor walked in.

"I'm sorry senator. I haven't been looking for her. I had to go back to the Tardis to mix this up." The Doctor showed a phial with a purple liquid inside.

"What is it?"

"It's an antidote." The Doctor popped it back in his pocket. " One drop of this and the Timewarp will be expelled out of her system."

"Time-what?"

"Timewarp. It's how they're called, those parasites that have taking control over your daughter's body and mind. I finally found out what they are when I realized that Dea's eyes had turned blue, just like that of the griffin. There are a million species of mind parasites out there, but only one can change their host's eye-colour into cobalt blue. And once I know the name of the beasty, I know how to treat it." The Doctor grinned confidently.

"But how is that going to help? I can't even find my daughter!" The senator panicked.

"That's not difficult. Not when you know what you are looking for." The Doctor replied, his eyes wide. "Now, what are we exactly looking for?" He muttered to himself. "We're talking about a creature that lives in a colony, and takes care of her siblings. Timewarps always have a nursery, you could call it a nest, a secret place under the earth for their sisters who are still in the larvae form to grow up in relative safety." The Doctor started pacing up and down the room, his mind buzzing. "They have to be fed at least twice a day, so it has to be easily accessible, and yet hidden. Raising no suspicion among their human hosts." The Doctor sudden stopped dead in his track. He gazed up at the senator. "The Master. He said something about the smell of garum. How it smelled differently. And he came back, didn't he?" The Doctor rambled, running his hands through his hair, his eyes flew wide in realization. "Oh, why didn't I see it coming? He came back here to check on the garum!"

"Doctor, I've completely lost you now. Please, tell me what's going on?" Pompous begged worriedly.

"Senator! Can you show me where you keep the pots?" The Doctor asked urgently.

"What?"

"The pots! The pots of home-made garum, liquamen, putrefied fish sauce, what ever you call it!" The Doctor shouted impatiently.

"But…what does that have anything to do with saving my daughter?"

"I'll get to that. Just show me the way, quickly!"

**5.**

When the women came back down in the vault the prisoners scrambled away from the bars like a flock of frightened chickens in a coop. Only Wilf was brave enough to stand tall and reason with them. The Master, sitting quietly in a corner of his cell, observed the foolish old man without saying a word.

"We need another one." Balcuba. "The first one is too skinny. One hour in the pot and there nothing left but bone. We need a fatter one." She put her hands on her side and eyed at Wilf.

"You two. Don't you come in here and take another one of us. I know that you're alien and all, but this isn't right. You can't go around murdering people!"

"Oh we can't now, can we? And why not? I've seen the amount of meat that you people devour. I should know, I've been preparing meals for that fat git who calls himself our master ever since we're stuck here. You humans are out to wipe out all of the species that are living on his planet."

Wilf backed up when she opened his cell and stepped inside.

"As I see it, this is a dog eat dog world in which the strong prey on the weak. So why would it be wrong, old man, to feed on the most feeble specimen of the human race?" She said in a low whisper, aiming her butcherknife at Wilf's throat.

Wilf's adam's apple moved up and down as he swallowed in fear. "Because…because it's just wrong. It's wrong to murder people. I won't let you take them."

"So, you're offering yourself then?" She grinned. "Fine by me." She grabbed hold of his arm and pushed Wilf in the direction of the door. "Coda, get this old fool upstairs. He's not the most appetizing one, but at least there's a good amount of fat on him."

"Wait! You can't do this!" Wilf objected, but the silent redhead came for him and dragged him half out of the cell. "Hands off! I won't let myself be turned into soup by a bunch of fishwifes! Let go of me!"

The flash of a knife shimmered in the darkness. Coda was about to strike her struggling prisoner in the belly when a hand snatched her wrist and held it down. She glanced back, more surprised than alarmed.

"Don't you dare." The Master whispered in such a hostile voice that it sent up the hairs in the back of her neck. "You don't want him."

A charming smile suddenly appeared on his face. "Look at him." He pointed out. "He's as old as the hills. He looks like hell. His meat is bound to be dry as bone and eating him would be as enjoyable as chewing on a piece of leather. It's gonna take ages to cook him."

"Excuse me?" Wilf commented.

Balcuba glared at the Master. "Maybe that annoying git is right. Coda, let go of the old loon and grab a younger one."

"Hey! Hey! Wait!" The Master shouted when he saw that Coda was about to pick out another prisoner out of Wilf's cell. He jumped to his feet and banged his hands flat on the bars to attract her attention. "You want to give those adorable little maggots of yours a good feed, why not try something different? Something more nutritious and delicious than yet another meal of tedious, boring old human." He smiled as a mad plan was taking form inside his head. "A different species perhaps. Something much more superior. More intelligent and noble, with more admirable traits that you would like to get incorporated in your race's DNA."

"And what would you suggest then?" Balcuba scoffed.

The Master raised his chin and spread out his arms as if to present himself to them.

"You got to be joking." Balcuba replied. "Mind you, I'm not too keen to see our hope for the next generation turn into complete nutters."

"The state of my mental health is not the trait that I most price." The Master replied calmly. He raised his hand, and slowly, he turned it to show his palm to Coda and Balcuba.

"Wait a minute." Balcuba mused. "Sister, didn't you cut his hand during his capture?"

Coda glanced at Balcuda and nodded.

"But…if that's so, where's the scar? There's no sign of it."

The Master's smile grew wider in confidence. He cocked his head to the side and showed the women his neck. Although the collar of his tunic was still caked with blood, the hideous wound that Coda had inflicted on him had completely disappeared.

"That's impossible…" Balcuba mumbled and without realizing, she stepped away from him. "What kind of man are you?"

"I told you. I'm not human." The Master replied, the mad smile vanished as his face darkened. "I'm a Timelord. I'm over 900 years old. I am immortal. And I've seen and have destroyed and have taken more lives that you two wretches could possible ever imagine."

The two women stared back at him with their eyes wide as they were slowly overtaken by fear. The Master shut his eyes for a moment and inhaled deeply. It had been a thousand years, but still he could relish in that most delicious of smell pure terror. He opened his eyes again and clapped loudly in his hands. "Now." He spoke, grinning madly from ear to ear. "Wouldn't that make me the most highly priced, and most delicious creature at your disposal?"

"Take him upstairs to our sister." The slight tremble in Balcuba's voice betrayed her nervousness. "She would know what to do with this freak."

"Hey. Don't! Keep your hands off him!" Wilf objected, but he was shoved back inside the prison cell.

"What are you doing?" He asked the Master while Coda removed him from his cell and bound his wrists behind his back. "You shouldn't have told them who you are. These monsters are going to kill you now."

"Just try to keep yourself out of trouble, and wait for him. It shouldn't take him much longer. He should have puzzled it out by now." The Master replied, giving Wilf a meaningful look.

"Why are you doing this?" Wilf asked, baffled as he realized what the Master was trying to do.

"Because n_ow_, it matters." The Master said, and turned from Wilf, letting himself being led away by the two murderous screws.

**TBC**


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter 5**

**1.**

Dea was surprised to see the Master appear on the landing, forced by her two sisters to climb the narrow staircase spiraling up from the lower prison chambers. "Why did you bring him up here?" She asked, scowling at her siblings. "We needed someone for the pot. Any one of those useless slaves would do."

"I thought you should see this pet freak of yours. He's getting stranger by the minute." Balcuba shoved the prisoner further into the dark room. The Master took a moment to glance around. They were inside yet another vaulted chamber with no windows. A huge cast iron cauldron, the size of four roman bathtubs, was sitting in the middle of the room on top of a burning pit. Flames and smoke rose from the side. Inside the pot, a liquid was bubbling away. He could pick up the familiar aroma of wild herbs mixed with the sweet sickening scent of cooking human flesh.

"Smell something familiar?" Dea commented coldly.

"The taste of human flesh is rather difficult to forget." He replied calmly. He glanced down at the wooden block on the floor. An axe lay in a large pool of crimson next to it. "So this is where it happens? This is where you slaughter all those humans?"

"This is where you are going to lose your head." Balcuba said threateningly, and picked up the blood-smeared cleaver.

"Not so fast, sister." Dea's eyes darted from the Master back to Balcuba. "What happened? Why are you suddenly so keen on getting rid of him?"

"He said he was a Timelord." Balcuba answered.

"A Timelord?" Dea blurted. She raised her eyebrows and giggled. "And you believed him? That's preposterous Balcuba! Our creators, the ancient Krillitanes, have once known those cruel Godlike beings, but like them, the Timelords have passed on. They no longer exist except for in the realm of fairytales and ghost-stories."

"Which must make me _really_ special." The Master grinned.

"It makes you a liar." Dea said sarcastically.

"It's true sister." Balcuba said with nervousness in her voice. She turned to the Master. "You." She ordered. "Show her your hand!"

The Master did just that.

"Where are your wounds?" Dea took his hand and studied it. Her eyes grew wide. "And your neck, there is not even a sign of a scar!"

"They've healed." The Master said. "Every nasty cut that your slash-happy sister has inflicted on me. It's all gone."

Dea breathed in anxiously. "That doesn't prove anything." She said firmly.

From the corners of his eyes, the Master saw that Coda was moving slowly closer to him, a little she-wolf waiting for the kill.

"Better safe than sorry sister." Balcuba encouraged Coda's action with a slight nod. "If he really is who he claims to be, he's too dangerous to keep alive. You know those bogeyman stories about the Timelords that our elders used to whisper to us in the dark? We can't trust him."

Dea kept her watchful eyes fixed on the Master. "If you truly are a Timelord, why are you still here? Why did you not try to escape?"

"My dear lady, I don't know how far your knowledge reach about our race." The Master responded. "Although I must agree that we're quite remarkable, I can't exactly bend iron bars or walk straight through your prison walls." He shot a look of anxious honesty at Bulcuba and her murderous sister. "And although I am immortal, I'm still _very_ afraid, to suffer."

"Then you shouldn't have meddled with our affairs in the first place." Dea replied. "It's too late for you to repent. You're gonna end up like all the others." She dipped a large spoon into the bubbling soup and lifted out a pale human bone, boiled clean from its flesh. "As a nutritious broth for my starving sisters." She said mercilessly.

"My lady, that's a fate worse than death." The Master replied, looking shocked.

"Cowering now, are you?" Balcuba ridiculed, gaining confidence as she recognized the fear on the Master's face. "And I though you were so brave, sacrificing yourself to save the others."

"Why would I care about a bunch of miserable little humans?" The Master snapped, his voice tight. "Once the axe comes down on their necks, it's all over for them. But for me…what does your punishments hold for someone who cannot die?"

"You're really afraid." Dea opted, her mouth dropped open in surprise. "You fear torture and an excruciating pain that would last an eternity." A smile curled the corners of Dea's lips as she realized what was going on in her prisoner's mind. "Oh this actually makes me quite curious, what does happen to you, say if w put you in the pot and boil you alive? Would you keep screaming endlessly?"

The Master, looking fearful, swallowed hard. "I want to make you and your sisters a proposition."

"You're not in the position to bargain with us, _Timelord_." Dea said in a mocking voice.

"Please. I beg you. If you must destroy me, I would prefer not be boiled and fed to your siblings. Take me as your host. I would willingly let one of you take over my mind and body as long as I will be spared from that most horrible fate."

"So you prefer a coward's way out." Dea scoffed. "Why should we do you any favors?"

The Master looked sharply at her. "I know that the Timewarps do not care about their own existence. But what I don't understand is why you devote your whole life to the next generation of your race, while neglecting your own?"

"The survival of the colony is more important than any of our selfish needs." Dea answered.

"Indeed, your species as a whole benefits of such a selfless, and most admirable strategy." The Master concurred. "But meanwhile, you're all emaciated because your instincts order you to work and not feed, and the only reward that you and your diligent sisters could hope for is to die of exertion after you've fulfilled your strenuous tasks. That would have been perhaps, acceptable, if you had occupied any other species in the universe, but not these human hosts. Part of their DNA is now incorporated into yours, and knowing the nature of these selfish, laissez-faire creatures, it is only expected that some of their rebellious spirit has rubbed off on you."

"We have our host's egocentric nature fully under control." Dea commented icily.

"But why would you? Think! These humans didn't get it all wrong. A strong sense of self-preservation, an drive to survive against all odds, isn't that the very essence of being alive? Take that away from any creature, and you're nothing but a sacrificial member of a mindless slave-race."

"How dare you!" Balcuba snapped. Coda responded immediately by pushing the blunted end of the axe under the Master's chin.

"Wait!" The Master yelled, fixing his eyes on Dea. "Don't you get it? You're no longer true Timewarps! You've become something-else! After so many years, so many generations, your species have mutated, evolved into something better. You don't need to listen to your instincts. What good will it do to sacrifice your life for those faceless worms that you call your siblings?" He paused for a frightening moment when he felt the sting of the sharp end of the cleaver brush over his skin, so very close to his pulsating jugular. "Please. I'm offering you an eternal life." He pleaded with Dea. "A chance to be set free from the primitive genetic doctrine of your species, a chance to be free of death."

"Don't listen to her sister." Balcuba hissed. "He's trying to seduce you with his pretty tales." She eyed at her Coda who was about to slit the Master's throat. "I say we cut him up before he's spewing out more of this nonsense."

"No! Wait." Dea said sternly, seizing Coda's wrist to stop her.

"Sister?" Balcuba en Coda stared at Dea, both angrily questioning her intentions.

"Maybe he's got a point." Dea said softly.

"How could you agree with him? His ideas are sacrilegious!" Balcuba replied furiously.

"But why indeed should we sacrifice ourselves? Why do we keep serving our siblings while ignoring the vital needs of our own?"

"Because from the moment of our creation, the Timewarps have always watched over their own kind!" Balcuba answered strictly.

"But it's only common sense to take care of ourselves first." Dea gave the others a defiant look. "Think about this, sisters. Who made these rules? Who wrote this obedient behavior into our DNA? It was our Krillitan lords who would benefit the most if we turned out docile and predictable, easy to manipulate. It wasn't in our interest. But they're gone, destroyed by the Timelords, and we can finally take our lives into our own hands." She paused, and gazed at the others. "I don't want to die." She said truthfully. "Not for my species. Not for anyone of you." She smiled bravely, relieved that she finally had the courage to speak her mind. "I want to live."

Shocked by Dea's revelation, Coda let go of the Master, and marched up to her, pointing the cleaver threateningly at her heaving bosom.

"Wait Coda." Balcuba said hesitantly. Although she wasn't the most rebellious of the three, she too had become intrigued by the tempting prospect that was offered to her. "What do you have in mind?" She asked not without skepticism. "Even if we would consider this, there's only one Timelord, and there are three of us."

"True. But I'm sure that you're part right about our prisoner." Dea answered. "The other one, the one called the Doctor, he might have been clever, but this one is cunning. Shrewd like a desert fox. He cannot be trusted on his words." She paced calmly around her prisoner. "My guess is that he's only pretending to be afraid." She continued, smiling knowingly. "I bet he had it all planned. How he would like to see the three of us, arguing about who gets to take his physical form, fighting amongst ourselves. Meanwhile, he's taking his chance to look for an opportunity to escape." She halted, facing the Master. When she gazed deep into his eyes, all of his hope that she was still ignorant of his mad plan completely evaporated.

"Not us, Timelord. Me and my dear sisters won't be that easily tricked." She smiled devilishly, granting the Timelord a look that was all together evil. "If there is a chance for immortality, than surely, the three of us will share it equally."

**2.**

The Doctor went over the courtyard like a whirlwind, lifting all the lids from the pots that contained the fermenting garum, and finally knelt beside the last one. Peering into the pool of the dark, foul smelling substance beneath, he took out the phial with the pink liquid and removed the cork with his mouth. He gazed at senator Pompous with a mad and excited glint in his eyes. "Ready?"

"Ready for what?" The senator asked.

"This." The Doctor raised his eyebrows and with a silly little grin, tilted the phial. A shimmering drop of the antidote disappeared into the darkness. As soon as it hit the dark, honey-color fish-sauce, it turned it into a luminous pink, which spread quickly over the surface in widening circles. Under their feet, the earth started to rumble dangerously.

"_Ammàzzete_! What's going on?" Pompous yelled. His eyes grew wide in shock when he saw a creature emerge. An enormous monster with an elongated worm-like form broke through the pink surface. Limbless and eyeless, its head consisted mostly out of a large frightening maul with six rows of razor-sharp teeth. It raised itself up towards the rim of the container, and spread its mouth wide open. For a terrifying moment, the senator was looking right into the pale, slimy tissues of its churning gut.

"By Pluto's gates of hell! What nightmare creature is this?" The senator stammered. "What beast of hell?"

And then he saw the piles of bones that stirred up from the deep with the motion of the beast. A rotting human skull, split open from the cranium to the side, drifted to the surface and stared at the senator with its dark, empty eye-sockets.

The senator, struck speechless with fear, scrambled quickly away from the pot.

"They've been feeding on humans." The Doctor said, trying to stay calm, but inside, his anger was rising. "Growing fat on the flesh of your slaves and servants! Give this lot another month, and they will crawl out of their nurseries and start cannibalizing the whole of Ephesus." He jumped up, looking even more determined than before. "Not any more."

The Doctor moved to the next buried jar and dropped a dash of the antidote into it, summoning the wormlike Timewarp larvea by doing so. He rushed from pot to pot, till he had treated all 13 of them. The ground underneath the courtyard was now trembling violently as if struck by a minor earthquake, and the slimy heads of the Timewarps larvae were sticking out of each hole, roaring and spitting a blue sticky mucus at anything that came nearby. The Doctor leaped over the ceramic jars, dodged the snarling beasts, and dived into the arcade next to the senator, who had been cowering behind a statue of his late wife with a handful of his servants.

"Gods save us Doctor!" The senator pleaded. "What should we do? We can't get back inside the villa without crossing the courtyard and risking the wrath of these beasts!"

"No we won't." The Doctor huffed, trying to catch breath. "Give it a little time, ten seconds tops. Their skin is thick but also quite porous. It should be able to absorb the antidote."

"What's happening to them? Its like they're bloating up!" One of the slaves said fearfully.

"The antidote was made to treat infected humans. It works by selectively destroying the parasite's DNA in the DNA helix of the human host. On the pure form of the Timewarps however, it seems mainly to give them a hell of an indigestion." The Doctor explained, and shot a worried glance around the column. He furrowed his brows when he noticed that the Timewarps, despite of their massive swollen bodies were starting to crawl out of the garum pots. Maybe they've been closer to fledging than he thought. "On a second thought, give it a minute or two longer." He reassured the senator and the others. "Just to be sure."

**3.**

"Stop struggling." Balbuca ordered as she continued to tighten the ropes around the Master's chest and legs. "Or else I'll let Coda severe your tendons before we feast on you."

The Master was tied down on a large kitchen table with the three homicidal bitches standing around him in a semi-circle. He didn't like to admit it, but genuine fear was gripping onto his hearts.

"Ladies, are you sure that this is wise?" He tried, breathing raggedly, and forcing himself to appear as composed and confident as possible. "There is no guarantee that eating me would transfer my capacities to you. You may just waste all of your chances in one pointless bloodbath."

"Oh, but if it doesn't work out the way we like, we could just try your suggestion later on." Dea smiled cruelly. "You said you were immortal. Let's see if your heart grows back when we take it out."

"I want the heart!" Balcuba snapped.

Coda shook her head fervently in an effort to claim it for at herself.

"Heart, liver, kidney…Do you two honestly think that it matters which part of him we consume?" Dea scoffed. "All we need is his DNA so we can let it be incorporated into our genome. As long as we eat enough of him, it should work." Her delicate hand slipped over the wooden handle of a butcher knife, and traced the sharp edge with her fingers till it cut a crimson line over the tips.

"No, no." The Master struggled against his bonds, eyes widening. "No you're making a mistake here. It wouldn't you any good. Don't do this!"

"Maybe I should cut out your tongue first." Dea teased wickedly, and with one angry tug, ripped his tunic apart all the way down to expose his stomach. "A bit of peace and quiet at dinner time is ever so appreciated."

Dea leaned over him. Her long cascade of chestnut locks caressing his chest, the silver of the blade shimmered dangerously in the dark.

"No." pleaded the Master softly, remembering the cruel agony of the previous cuts all too well.

"I don't know about you my dear sisters." Dea whispered, slipping her tongue over her ruby lips. "But I'm _starving_."

The blade plunged into his flesh and the Master uttered an agonized cry when she started to draw open his belly, pulling his flesh apart like she was gutting a slaughtered animal.

"Look at that!" She said, while her sisters held down his shaking arms and legs. "I can see your innards, all pick and pretty." She shoved a bloodred apple into his mouth to gag his pitiful screams. "Now let's see if we can find your liver."

She was about to cut all the way down when an explosion rocked the vaulted walls and send sand and dust falling down from the ceiling.

What's happening?" Dea yelled, distracted, she drew the bloodstained knife out of him.

"It's coming from the courtyard." Balcuba replied.

"Go see what's going on!" Dea ordered, getting alarmed. A second explosion shook the chamber, sending a pile of root vegetables rolling off the table and onto the kitchen-floor. Coda complied, and immediate rushed out, carefully hiding the cleaver in the folds of her skirt. Dea stared angrily at the Master, who breathed heavily through his gag, and was shivering of agony with his blood pooling around him. Nevertheless, he managed to return a defiant look to her.

"If you have anything to do with this!" She hissed.

But of course, he did.

He knew that the Doctor was finally coming.

**4.**

Coda blasted into the courtyard to find it to be turned into a minefield, with bits of earth and potshards mixed with unidentifiable pieces of her treasured siblings spread rather thinly over the entire space. Her instincts, all caught up in a vindictive response, pushed her to search for the ones responsible for the massacre. She found them, huddled together in the arcade to shield themselves from the ongoing blasts. Not too far away, she could distinguish their faces clearly. That man that was hiding behind the column next to the senator, she recognized him all too well.

She breathed in deeply, her mind guided by nothing but rage, and with the cleaver raised, stormed out to get him.

When the Doctor saw her coming, his eyes grew wide, and he jumped out of his shelter to shout and wave at her.

"Stop! Go back!"

Coda ignored the Timelord's warnings, and stepped too close to one of the remaining pots. The Timewarp larvea, driven mad by the agony of the poison coursing through their system, grabbed hold of her by twisting its body around her ankle. Coda glanced down, suddenly frightened, and tried to free herself from its grip, but as she struggled, a second Timewarp wrapped itself around her chest, slowly tightening the coil like a giant anaconda snake.

The Doctor came rushing over, determined to save her, but before he could get close enough, the two wormlike creatures started swelling up till their bodies were hideously gray skins stretched so thin that they were almost translucent. Coda stared fearfully at her horrifically deformed siblings. She could see the working of their organs, the churning of the guts and the pumping of the primitive single valve heart. A bright, pink light swirled inside the condemned creatures like an angry destructive fire.

The last thing she saw was that pink light flaring up into a blinding blaze, and then the Timewarp larvae exploded, killing her instantly.

**5.**

"Why does it take her so long?" Dea paced around impatiently, her hands resting on her hips. "She should be back by now."

Another blast shook their underground hideout. A line of amphorae tumbled from the shelves and broke their oily content over the floor. The Master was coughing violently as blood started to gurgle up his throat from his gullet. Dea removed the gag, allowing him to recover and breathe more freely.

"Maybe we should get on with it." Balcuba opted nervously. "You know, before…"

"Before what?" Dea asked, stabbing the knife into the table. She saw the look in her sister's eyes. "You're not serious." She laughed bitterly. "You really think that he's doing all that?" pointing at the crack in the ceiling.

"I'm only urging you to be careful. Remember what happened to our Krillitan lords." Balcuba warned. "It took only one of them to destroy them all."

"There is no such thing as a Timelord curse!" Dea shouted back. "This is exactly why our race has weakened into such a pathetic state! If the last of our kind consist of a group of desperate fishwives who are too dumb to distinguish superstition from reason than perhaps we really should become extinct, for evolution's sake!"

Balcuba shot an anxious look at the Master. "You may mock me sister, but I still think we should kill him." She opted in a tight, determined voice.

"Don't be daft, he's immortal." Dea answered, covering her face with a slightly shaking hand.

"He said he was." Balcuba moved closer to the table and studied the Master's pale and sweat-drenched face. "We don't know for sure, do we? Like they say, the prove is in the pudding."

"No." Dea said sternly.

"Dead or alive, it shouldn't matter. His flesh would still taste the same."

"I said no!"

"Why do you keep protecting him?" Balcuba, angered by her sister's stubbornness. "Don't you remember what happened to one of our precious sibling in the temple of Artemis? Keeping him alive is dangerous!"

"I didn't." Dea muttered. She paused. Shutting her eyes, she leaned on the table for support.

Pain-struck as he was, the Master still noticed the strange vacant expression that came over his tormentor.

"I'm not protecting him." She added. "At least not on purpose."

"Not on purpose, but perhaps unwillingly." The Master whispered, swallowing blood. "Tell me, how did you end up on Earth?" He asked, trying hard to focus his mind and ignore the burning pain. He knew that the planet wasn't in the usual trading route of the Naskuls. Besides that, they've also showed up 54 centuries too early.

"The Naskuls were pirates." Dea answered truthfully after a long silence. "They captured a Vollitian spaceship, and couldn't believe their luck when they discovered that three of the crew members were infected with us. They raided the ship, murdered the rest of the crew, and took us as their prisoners. Eager to make a quick fortune, they were trying to ship us to an arms-dealer in the Orion galaxy, but unfortunately for them, they were intercepted."

"The Shadow Proclamation?" The Master opted.

"No." Dea slowly shook her head, her eyes hazed with that far-away look. "They received a strange signal, all the way from the furthest boundaries of the known galaxies. It sounded like a distress call, only it wasn't."

"Sister, be careful what you are telling him!" Balcuba urged.

"It has to be said." Dea muttered awkwardly, her mind was wandering. It was filled with that strange, alien rhythm. "It's….it's why we're here." She glanced at the Master. "There's no such thing as coincidence."

"What kind of sound?" The Master asked, swallowing hard.

"Tapping.' She replied, her voice cold and flat. "Four simple beats. Repeating itself across the universe. It interfered with the Naskuls navigation system and hijacked their ship, hauled them all the way through space and time, locking it into a collision course with Earth. The Naskuls tried everything they could to avoid disaster, but there was no way of escape." She shut her eyes, and listened. "I can still hear them sometimes. That eerie sound, traveling out there in the cold vast emptiness of space. Four knocks. The Grimm Reaper waiting at the door."

Dea's eyes opened. Slowly, they returned to full alertness, the veil of absentmindedness evaporated as she picked up her knife.

"My sisters and I only survived because we retreated back into our true form, and hid inside the capsule with our unborn siblings. After the space ship crashed on Earth, and our original hosts and captors perished in the unforgiving flames, we sought out new hosts among the planet's dominant species. My chance came when Dea Pompous arrived to the temple to pray to the Goddess for her father's good health. After I took over her mind and body, it wasn't too difficult for the senator's daughter to obtain the human slaves that were needed to provide my sisters with the necessary vessels of their own."

"It can't be." The Master shook his head slowly, losing his nerves. "It's impossible. You cannot have heard them."

Dea's lips widened into a grotesque smile, and with the back of the knife, she tapped four times on the table, imitating the frightening rhythm of the cursed drums that had robbed him of his sanity for so many years.

**6.**

The raw power of the explosion sent the Doctor flying backwards. He could have broken his neck if he smashed into the pillars, but luckily, he crashed into the senator and his servants, who had rushed forward to break his fall. Quickly, they dragged the Timelord back to the relative safety of the arcade.

"I'm sorry." The Doctor said solemnly.

"It's not your fault." The senator responded with compassion.

"I had to give them the antidote." The Doctor justified, but his conscience was weighing heavily on his hearts. "If they were allowed to fully mature, they would have wiped out the entire human population in town. There was no other way, and no more time. I had to destroy them now while they're not yet conscious."

"You did your best. You tried to save her." The senator responded. "And as for these monsters, they only have themselves to blame. They're foul, murderous beasts!" He snapped, remembering the gruesome human remains. "What have they done with my beloved Dea? Did they…kill her?" The senator asked, his voice was weak and his eyes were close to tears.

"Oh no, no no no senator." The Doctor returned an encouraging smile to him. "No, she's all right. Except for she's now doing the biddings of a murderous parasite that is tunneling inside her head. Believe me, I've seen much worse." The Doctor nodded, remembering how the Master used to be when those balmy drums were still doing their destructive bit. Another explosion followed, sending a rain of dark earth and pale red pieces of larvae into the air. The Doctor stared sternly over the devastated courtyard.

"13 in total. That's the last one." He rose to his feet. "Let's go and find your daughter." The Doctor said, and headed into the direction of the kitchen where Coda had appeared.

**7.**

Entering the kitchen, the Doctor saw that the place was deserted, except for two very frightened slaves who were hiding under the kitchen table. Doctor grab hold of a young man who looked particularly spooked.

"Did you see where Coda came from?"

The young man pointed at the door that led into the courtyard.

"No! Not where she went. Where she came from." The Doctor asked, impatiently. "Where was she before she rushed outside?"

"In the flesh larder." The slave answered, pointing out the door at the other end of the large kitchen.

The Doctor ran across the kitchen and entered the room at the back.

The room was dark and cool, with the thick smell of blood, mixed with the musky smell of meat lingering in the air. Butchered animals, ducks, pheasants, geese, pigs, a half slaughtered sheep, together with a collection of more exotic animals, some skinned, some still covered in fur, hung upside down from the ceiling.

"Looks like the zoo of death in here. Ever considered of becoming a vegetarian my dear senator?" Doctor asked, eying with much disapproval at a severed rhinoceros head draining from its blood above a copper plate. Then the Doctor spotted something peculiar and he moved closer to investigate.

The skin was exceptionally hairless, and his hearts shuddered when he realized what it was. Dangling between two quartered pigs, suspended from a rusty iron hook that went into the back of her neck, was the olive-skinned servant girl Appia. Her arms and legs were cut off, and her torso was slashed open and her internal organs removed, leaving her like appear like a rump of meat that was prepared by the butcher.

The senator turned away, clamping a shivering hand over his mouth, he wretched violently.

"Oh…" The Doctor whispered, remembering how kindly she had treated him and the Master. "I'm so, _so_ sorry."

Appia stared back at him with cold accusing eyes. Behind her was a dark wall, half-hidden by high stacks of logs for the kitchen fire. A cool draft brushed over the Doctor's face. He went behind the wood stack, and discovered a secret doorway. It was no more than a small hole in the wall, but it was large enough for a grown man to just squeeze through.

"Senator, we need a light." The Doctor said, gazing into it anxiously.

Soon, one of the slaves returned from the kitchen with an oil-lamp. The Doctor checked the space behind the entrance. The flickering light revealed a tunnel that descended with stone steps into the darkness below.

"What's down there?" Pompous asked.

They were all startled when a mad scream echoed through the narrow claustrophobic space. The familiarity of the voice cut right into Doctor's hearts. Immediately, he climbed through the doorway into the tunnel, closely followed by the senator and two of his bravest slaves.

**8.**

The tunnel became wider at the end, and came out into a dark chamber with a high vaulted ceiling. A single wooden door sat in the wall. The Doctor tried it. Surprisingly it wasn't locked and he entered, walking straight into narrow chamber with two rows of prison cells. From inside one of those cells, Wilf looked up. A smile of relief washing over his troubled face as he realized who had come to his rescue.

"Doctor! Oh I'm so glad you're here! You have to stop those wenches. They are murdering people!"

Without halting his pace, the Doctor picked up an axe that had been left behind by Corda.

"Stand back!" He shouted and slammed the axe down on the locks. After a second blow, the metal gave and the locks broke off. The Doctor handed the axe over to one of Pompous men. "Free the others." He ordered, and swung the door wide open to let the prisoners escape.

"Wilf are you all right?" The Doctor asked worriedly.

Wilf nodded. "They got the Master. They took him. They went through there." Wilf said, and pointed at the second door at the other end of the room.

Without hesitation, the Doctor ran out of the prison chamber with his hearts thudding in his chest.

The second door opened to a helix of stairs that brought the Doctor up to a larger room, also with vaulted walls. A huge cauldron was boiling above an open pit of fire. A human arm floated up in the thick soup, the skin already splitting on the top of the fingers. The Doctor was still staring at the grotesque scene just when Wilf came rushing up the staircase together with the senator.

"Oh my God." The old man muttered when he saw what was cooking in the pot. He turned to the Doctor. "They didn't boil him up, did they?"

"No." The Doctor shook his head sternly and gazed around in the hope to find a clue on the whereabouts of the Master. There was a chopping block with frightening stains on the floor, and on the kitchen table was a knife drowning in a pool of fresh blood, but there was no sign of the Master or the women.

"Timewarps." The Doctor yelled angrily while standing tall. "Children of the Krillitans. Don't hide like cowards. Show yourself!"

A shadow shifted at the back. Before the Doctor could react, Balcuda appeared and grabbed hold of the senator.

"Balcuba, what are you doing?" The senator snapped, recognizing his kitchen maid. "Let go of me at once! Have you gone completely mad?"

Instead of complying her master's wishes she just laughed at him, screeching like an old witch. Her black nails suddenly elongated into five knife-sharp talons, each of them went into the senator's neck till pinprick dots of crimson rose on his skin. The shock of what was happening to him immediately shut the senator up.

"One step closer Timelord, and this lardy bastard is done for." Balcuba sneered.

A sound of footsteps came from behind his back, and the Doctor turned to see Dea standing in front of the boiling cauldron, holding on to the Master, whose wrists were still bound on his back. The Doctor breathed in anxiously when he saw the hideous wound that was starting heal on the Master's stomach. Dea followed the Doctor's horrified gaze and with a malicious grin, ran her knife over the fresh wound, reopening the skin and extracting a cry from the Master.

"Stop it! Don't hurt them!" The Doctor yelled, bolting forward, he halted abruptly when he saw that the knife was only disappearing deeper inside the Master. "Don't. Please Don't." The Doctor pleaded.

"Dea! What are you doing? Why are you helping this murderous harpy?" The senator exclaimed.

"You can't reach her." The Doctor explained, keeping an eye on them both. "They're infected with the parasites. You can try to talk to her, but it won't be your beloved daughter Dea who answers."

"Like I thought. He's clever, this one." Dea smiled. "Still, not clever enough to save his friends."

"Let go of them! I'm warning you!" The Doctor raged.

"I can't do that, Timelord." Dea answered, smiling knowingly. "Your friend here has just promised us immortality. I can't let him go before we get what we want, what we deserve." She glanced triumphantly at her sister, who flashed a murderous grin back at the Doctor and Wilf.

"There are two of them now. Surely there is now enough Timelord for the three of us to share." Balcuba said confidently.

"The two of you." The Doctor corrected. His hand slipped inside the pouch of his tunic to take out the phial. He removed the cork and hid the phial in the palm of his hand.

"What do you mean?" Dea snapped, becoming suspicious. "What happened to Coda?"

The Doctor remained silent, but the mournful expression on his face told her everything.

"You…you murdered her?"

"I didn't." The Doctor shook his head. "It was an accident."

"Oh you mean just like the one in the Artemis temple?" Dea pressed on, anger and sorrow quickly boiling up. "By heavens! Those stories we heard about you are all true! The Timelords are indeed cold-hearted, calculative and merciless."

"It's not what you think what happened." The Doctor tried, but Dea had already stopped listening.

"You murdered our sister!" She raged, and glanced sideways at the Master, then at the senator. "You'll pay for this. Balcuba, slash that fat git's throat!"

"No!" The Doctor ran forward, and threw the content of the phial over Balcuba. The glass vial slipped out of his hand but a good splash of the pink liquid hit her face, boiling away her skin. She screamed in agony, and let go of the senator. One of the slaves, fearing for his master's life and that of his own, used the moment of distraction to pick up the bloody knife from the table.

"No!" The Doctor yelled. "She's saved! She's turning back to her human form!"

But the slave was too frightened to recognize any changes in the wild, screeching woman. With one stoke, he stabbed the Timewarp in her neck. A mist of aortic crimson sprayed onto the walls and Balcuba sank through her knees.

"Sister!" Dea cried, her eyes ablaze with rage. She caught the Doctor reaching out for the antidote that had rolled underneath the table. Although most of it had spilled out, a good quarter of the volume was still left inside the glass container. Fearful that she might be expelled from her host, she let go of the Master and dived after it. She was quicker than the Doctor, and was about to wrap her grasping fingers around the phial when Magnus got hold of it first. With a determined expression on his face, he splashed the remaining liquid over Dea, who turned her face away but could not prevent a few drops from landing on the skin of her hand. It immediately started to smoke, and Dea screamed.

"Dea!" The senator dropped the empty phial, and struck by his child's distress, he rushed over to her aid.

Enraged with pain, the Timewarp protected herself on instinct, and drove the knife that she still carried into the senator's side.

Pompous dropped down on his knees. His shivering fingers grasped his lethal wound. "Dea." He uttered in disbelief before he fell down.

"I'm not." Dea murmured, her head was burning, and the world was turning red in front of her eyes. "I'm not your daughter." But as she spoke these words, she felt the first stings of grief and remorse enter her heart. The Timewarp was finally retreating out of her system. She scrambled back to the Master, remembering that she still had her prisoner, and held on to him like a human shield. Her world was falling apart. She was Dea Pompous, the daughter of the now dying senator, and she was one of the last Timewarps in existence, clamping onto life, while her beloved sisters had perished before her eyes.

The Master had loosened the knots enough to free his hands. He threw off his bonds, and stared into the face of the sadistic creature at whose hands he had suffered so much. The confusion and fear in her eyes was evident, as they were slowly drained from the cobalt blue, revealing the natural chestnut colorization.

"What?" She whispered, struck by an incredibly grief, tears started to sting her eyes and stream down her cheeks. She looked down at her hands, stained crimson by her father's blood. Oh, if only she could stop remembering and forget all about her crime, but fate was merciless and cruel.

"You did this." She raged, letting the last traces of the Timewarp speak through her grief. "You lured us to his planet and brought us to ruin. You and those cursed drums!"

"Master! NO!" The Doctor shouted.

Her hand was still wrapped around the handle of the knife when the Master took it and drove it deep into her heart. She stared at him, eyes wide in shock as the last of the blue disappeared from her pupils. Raggedly, she drew a long breath, gazing across the chamber at the lifeless form of her father. A final tear slipped down her cheek, then the light in her eyes faded.

The Master let go of her. Her body had suddenly turned limp and heavy, and slipped on the floor like a boneless bag of skin. Just like Dea before, he stared at the blood of his victim. It stained his trembling, guilty hands crimson.

"There was no need." The Doctor said ruefully, shaken by anger. "There was no need to kill her!"

"I-" The Master hesitated, and looked up at the Doctor. He wanted to explain, tell him what he had discovered in the last dying words of the young girl that had scared and enraged him so much that it drove him to this madness, but he couldn't.

There were no words.

Only burdened silence.

**9.**

The funeral of the honorable Magnus Pompous and his beloved daughter Dea that followed was a bleak affair. In life, the senator had not much family left, but he had a large number of what he thought of loyal friends. But now in death, his funeral pyre was only surrounded by a handful of people, most of them slaves who the Doctor had set free in honor of the senator. Grateful for their new-found freedom, they came to show the final respect to their generous master and mistress. Still, very little tears were shed, except by the professional mourners that were hired by the senator's most loyal servants, and Wilf, who couldn't keep his eyes dry when he saw the bodies of both father and daughter laid out on the stacks, ready to be carried together to the gates of the underworld.

When the Doctor lit the fire, the Timelord couldn't hold back the tears that stung in his eyes. Only the Master appeared to be emotionless and unaffected throughout the whole ceremony, staring silently at the two while the flames consumed them.

It wasn't before long that even the small group of the senator's so-called friends left the funeral for the forum to attend the auction of the late senator's lands and estates. It wasn't that they were mean-spirited, but life as it was should continue in Ephesus, despite of what had happened, and life in this provincial Roman port, simply meant business.

When the last of the amber in the ashes had died down, the Doctor and his companions left in the newly restored Tardis, heading back for present day London.

**10.**

"There you are, safe and sound, delivered right at your front door." The Doctor grinned. "Not bad, if I can say so myself."

"When did we leave again?" Wilf asked, gazing on his watch and staring around the street for some clues. It was a gloomy winter day. A stark contrast with the almost dazzling summer-like heat he had experienced in the ancient Roman town. "Or should I say, when will we leave?" Wilf said, confused already. "I won't be getting those Judoons knocking on my door again, will I?"

The Doctor also checked his watch. "It's exactly 2 seconds after we were beamed up by the Judoon brigade to their ship on the platform of Balham station." He reported with a grin. "After that – well you know what happened after that, you were there. So you know you won't be seeing mister Foks and his crew any time soon."

"I better call Donna." Wilf remembered, and started looking for his mobile phone. "She's gonna be worried sick."

"Uh Wilf. You might want to wait a bit before you do that." The Doctor smiled wisely. "She saw you being arrested by a group of officers just seconds ago. It would be majorly weird for her to receive a call directly after that."

"Oh, right." Wilf muttered, realizing. He put his mobile away. "What about you Doctor? Are you still going to travel, with him?" He gestured at the Master, who was standing away from them, and was pretending to be studying the clouds in the sky.

"Yes." The Doctor's voice suddenly turned stern. "I am."

"Even after what happened?"

"It's exactly because of what happened. I will be keeping him close." He relaxed a little. "You're gonna advise against it?"

Wilf shook his head and smiled back at the Doctor. "I don't get you two. I really don't. But I do get that he needs you, as much as you need him." He took the Doctor's hand and gave a slight squeeze. "Just try to keep out of trouble."

The Doctor smiled warmly at him, and nodded before he walked back to the Tardis. The Master was about to follow, when Wilf came rushing over to him.

"Master. Wait."

The Master turned, surprised that the old man was speaking to him. They had hardly exchanged any words after the deaths of the senator and his daughter. Actually, he had hardly spoken to anyone at all, including the Doctor.

"Here." Wilf pushed his mobile phone into his hand. "Take this. I got a new one for Christmas. Wouldn't know what to to do with two mobiles."

"And what am I supposed to do with it?" The Master asked, cocking an eyebrow.

"You give me a call. Next time you find yourself in trouble."

"You want me to call you?" The Master asked, astonished.

"Yes, and don't use it for anything else! No prank-calls or anything to scare off my family, or my friends! I won't have it!"

"What are you trying to do?" The Master replied with an amused look in his eyes. "I know you just love to play the Doctor's dad, but you can't adopt us all."

"I figured you might need some help. One day. When the Doctor is not around."

Wilf stared at the Master, his old eyes shining with sympathy. "I know. It can't be easy for you. Not after what happened."

"Don't pity me old man." The Master replied in a soft voice. "I've killed before. More times then you could ever imagine."

"Yes, I know. But none of that ever mattered to you. Until now." Wilf paused. "You saved my life." He finally said. "I saw the look on your face when you…you killed her. I've seen that look before. Back in the war. In the army. Bright young lads, full of life, who went to the continent to fight, but came back hollow, aged into old men." Wilf said. "It must be hard, trying to live with it."

The Master looked away, for Wilf's words had affected him more than he wanted to admit. "I didn't-" He hesitated, after all this time, the words still didn't want to come. "She said something to me, and I just, I couldn't…" He stared back at Wilf, who waited patiently.

The Master shook his head.

"Can't find the words, hey?" Wilf said, staring at him compassionately. "That's alright. At least you've reassured me now that the Doctor won't be traveling with some remorseless monster."

"Yeah. Right." The Master muttered with a sad smile.

"Keep the phone." Wilf repeated.

"You're one annoying old man." The Master told Wilf, but he looked grateful, and slipped the mobile inside his pockets.

"Ha! You can't scare me off." Wilf smiled kindly at him. "I've seen you lick milk from a bowl like a weak kitten. I'm not afraid of you, sir!"*1

"And surely I would rather not be reminded of that." The Master replied with a grin that for once, was truly sincere.

**11.**

The Doctor was standing near the console in the hart of the Tardis. His mind was occupied by dark thoughts when it happened. Static flashed over the small monitor of the dashboard, three-four times. Then a text started to appear in green letters on the black screen. It was a message.

A message to the Doctor.

The Doctor read it in silence. When he was finished, he kept staring on screen, a horrified expression on his face.

**12.**

The Master was about to head back to the Tardis when he thought of something. He turned back.

"Wilf, did you mean those things you said to me, about your granddaughter? What was her name again? That fiery redhead, Dena, Dina?"

"Donna. Her name is Donna."

"Donna!" The Master snapped his fingers. "That's right. Do you really want her to remember everything that she had done with Doctor?"

"Oh, that would be the most amazing thing that I could wish for." Wilf said with a bleeding heart. "Only, that's impossible, right? Even the Doctor couldn't help her."

"The Doctor doesn't always have the answer." The Master took out a small object out of his pocket. It was Dea's silver earring. The one that had once carried the white sphere. He handed it over to Wilf.

"Give this to her."

"What is it?"

"It's a third generation chameleon device. Not a very good one I must say, but I know that the Timewarps have used it at least once to help them return to their original form. I had such a device, disguised as a seal ring, and it had saved my life. This one, I wanted to keep for myself, just in case my guarantee on my immortality ran out. You never know when it comes in handy." He smirked. "But perhaps your granddaughter has more use for it. This little trinket will protect her and help restore her memory."

"Thank you." Wilf said, lost for words.

"Thank yourself, old man." The Master said. Almost embarrassed by his sudden act of kindness, he quickly headed back to the Tardis.

Wilf studied the earring lying in the palm of his hand. "Hang on." He muttered. "How does this thing work? Does it mean that I can tell her about the Doctor now?" But his voice hardly carried above the rising sound of the Tardis engine. Wilf raised his head and saw the blue box dematerialize in front of his eyes.

**12.**

"So." The Master said.

"So." The Doctor echoed in his reply, while he was adjusting the coordinates. The Tardis console-room seemed a much emptier and colder place now that they were traveling without Wilf.

"Where are we going?"

"We're going somewhere far away and isolated. Somewhere where there are no humans or any other creatures for you to harm." The Doctor replied.

"I thought you trusted me." The Master said with a smug light-hearted grin.

"You knew about the Timewarps, but didn't say a thing." The Doctor replied more sternly to let him know that he was not in a bright mood. "You let me cannibalize human flesh." He added accusingly.

"Well, technically, it wasn't cannibalism, considering we're a different species and all." The Master replied, mocking the Doctor's seriousness.

The Doctor shot him a nasty look. "Someone died."

The smile vanished from the Master's face.

"She tortured me." He said in a matter of fact voice, as if that would instantly distance him from his crime. "She and her sisters got what they deserved."

"That wasn't Dea Pompous, and you know it."

"So what are you trying to say, that I'm a killer? What about you? Who killed off all of her poor baby sisters, 13 in one go?"

"They were not cognisant beings." The Doctor mumbled, stooping his head over the console.

"And that makes it less worse? Who are you to judge me?" The Master asked resentfully.

"I'm not saying that I'm innocent, of course not. Believe me, I have my own moral burden to carry, but you, you're out of control."

"I want to leave." The Master announced, leaning on the dashboards and looking bitter.

The Doctor shot a glance at him. "You can't."

"Land the Tardis somewhere. Anywhere. Right now!"

"I said you can't leave. I won't let you."

The Master bit on his lower lip and started messing with the controls.

"It's bio-locked." The Doctor said strictly. "You won't be able to do anything with it."

"You said that I wasn't your prisoner!" The Master hissed. "You lied to me, Doctor!"

"I can't set you loose out there. I thought you've changed after the drums were gone, but I was wrong. You're still the deranged murderous idiot who cannot be trusted around anyone or anything!" The Doctor shouted back in fury.

Is that how you see me?" The Master replied, laughing at him angrily. "A lunatic criminal? Unfit for your Utopian vision of a harmonious universe? Whatever happened to considering me as your equal?"

"You _had_ my trust. You've lost it." The Doctor answered in a flat voice.

The Master stared back at him. By the sight of the angry, determined look on the Doctor's face, he immediately knew that the Doctor was holding him fully accountable for Dea Pompous death, and that he had not been forgiven for the crime, nor would he receive leniency.

"You can't keep me here forever." The Master said. His reply was now more demure, but still resentful.

"No, you're right, but I can keep you here long enough." The Doctor murmured, turning his attention back to the screen.

A long silence followed in which the Master, knowing that he couldn't win from the Doctor, tried hard to compose himself.

"So, tell me then, my jailer, where are we going?" The Master finally repeated, his voice tight.

The Doctor didn't answer him. Silently, he finished feeding in the coordinates, and with a pull of the lever, set the course for their new destination.

The foreboding message that had appeared on the screen still burned in the back of the Doctor's mind.

_Doctor,_

_Beware of the nightmare child.*__2_

_R.S._

The End

_NOTES: _

_*__1:__Wilf was referring to how he found the Master in Minnie's __cellar in "Judoon Justice"._

_*__2: __In "His silent mind", the Master was referred to as the nightmare child by the mysterious inscriptions that was marked above the doors of the Master's prison. _

_Phew, that was it people for a murderous feast. I wrote this final chapter in one sitting and I am exhausted. Please review and comment on the story. Expect the next "episode" (since it was commented by some of the reviewers that this series was starting to read like full Doctor Who episodes) to appear by the end of July, called "Shattered Worlds." Once again, thank you all for your wonderful reviews, your tireless support and your addictive enthusiasm. For as long as people keep reading my work, I'll keep writing!_

_Alan_


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